Dan Morgenstern

Actor

Munich, Bavaria, Germany

October 29, 1929

Biography

Dan Michael Morgenstern (October 24, 1929 – September 7, 2024) was an American jazz historian and archivist. Born to a Jewish family in Germany, Morgenstern fled Nazi-occupied Austria with his mother and in 1947 emigrated to the United States. He first began visiting jazz clubs as a teenager and worked at The New York Times. After serving in the U.S. Army, he attended Brandeis University where he first began writing about jazz music. He went on to become a professional jazz critic and editor. Morgenstern led several jazz magazines and directed the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University from 1976 to 2012. He earned eight Grammy Awards for his album liner notes and wrote two books on jazz.