Marshall Stearns
Marshall Winslow Stearns (born October 18, 1908 in Cambridge (Massachusetts) , † December 18, 1966 in Key West , Florida ) was an American jazz historian and professor of English literature.
Act
Stearns was actually a professor of medieval English literature at Hunter College , but is best known for his meticulous work "The Story of Jazz" from 1956, which is based on numerous interviews (and listening to his very extensive record collection) and in which he among other things traced the African roots of jazz. In 1937 he was appointed to the Advisory Board of the Hot Record Society . He has been writing articles for the jazz magazine Down Beat since the 1940s . In 1952 he was the founder of the Institute for Jazz Studies , which has been based at Rutgers University in Newark in New Jersey since 1966 . It was then at the New School and Stearns had been teaching jazz history there since 1951. Stearns played a role in founding the Newport Jazz Festival . With his wife Jean, he undertook intensive research and numerous interviews, which resulted in the encyclopedic book Jazz Dance .
Because of his reputation, he was also hired by the State Department in 1956 to explain the history of jazz as part of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band 's global tour .
As an English specialist, he published on Robert Henryson, among others .
Works about jazz
- "The Story of Jazz". Oxford University Press, Oxford 1956, 1970.
- German edition: The story of jazz . Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1959.
- With his wife Jean: Jazz Dance - the story of american vernacular dance . Da Capo Press 1968.
Individual evidence
- ^ Scott Gac Jazz Strategy: Dizzy, Foreign Policy and Government in 1956 , Americana 2005
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stearns, Marshall |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Stearns, Marshall Winslow |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 18, 1908 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| DATE OF DEATH | 18th December 1966 |
| Place of death | Key West |