Stanley Dance

Stanley Dance ( born September 15, 1910 in Braintree, Essex, † February 23, 1999 in Escondido, California ) was a British- American music critic and author of biographies of jazz musicians.

Life and work

Stanley Dance began in the French magazine Jazz Hot in 1935 article about jazz to write. In 1937 he came to New York and studied at the local jazz scene. There he met the producer and journalist Helen Oakley, whom he married in England in 1947. After Dance had sold his shares to his inherited family business (among tobacco trade ), he moved in 1959 with his wife to Connecticut, where he devoted himself to jazz and organized inter alia revisions of swing music for Decca. From 1948 until his death he wrote for the Journal and also jazz for Down Beat, Saturday Review, Music Journal, Melody Maker and Others In the 1950s, he was instrumental in the formulation of the concept of mainstream jazz to make the music scene to describe between the traditionalists and the Dixieland bebop or modern jazz. In 1964, he was responsible for the rediscovery of Earl Hines, whose manager he was for many years. Dance was friends with Duke Ellington and assisted him in compiling his biography " Music is my Mistress ," while he accompanied him on his world tours. For the book "Duke Ellington in Person ", which he wrote with Mercer Ellington, he was awarded the 1979 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award.

For countless record covers Dance wrote the liner notes for albums like Duke Ellington and Count Basie. For this, he was the co-author of the 1964 Grammy Award for the best text for the album "The Ellington Era". He was honored with induction into the "Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame" in 1999. He was awarded the " Lifetime Achievement Award" from the American Jazz Journalist Association posthumously.

Controversial Stanley Dance is for his views on the Bebop and the subsequent innovations in jazz. His reputation in the jazz scene he reached as a " chronicler of Swing" and as an expert author of biographies of jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Earl Hines and to swing music ( first at Scribner's in New York).

Selected Bibliography

  • Jazz Era the Forties ( The Roots of Jazz) ( Da Capo Press, 1961) ISBN 0-306-76191-2
  • The World of Count Basie ( Da Capo Press, 1985 ) ISBN 0-306-80245-7
  • The World of Duke Ellington ( Da Capo Press) ISBN 0-306-81015-8
  • The World of Earl Hines, Scribners 1977, Da Capo Paperback, March 1983, ISBN 0-306-80182-5
  • The World of Swing: An Oral History of Big Band Jazz with introduction by Dan Morgenstern ( Da Capo Press; Diane Publishing Company re-edition 2003) ISBN 0-7567-6672-9
  • The Night People - The Jazz Life of Dicky Wells, Crescendo 1971, the Smithsonian 1991 ( Oral History )
Braintree (Essex) France Helen Oakley Dance
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