Dan Morgenstern (1929-2024): On Film!
I want to quickly say just a few words about Dan Morgenstern, who died in a hospital here in Manhattan on Saturday September 7, at the age of 94. (He would have been 95 on October 24.) At another time, I’ll post some detailed memories of him. I first met Dan (never Daniel, as he once informed me) around 1980, at the Institute of Jazz Studies, the massive archive at the Newark campus of Rutgers. After I became a music professor on the Rutgers-Newark faculty in 1986, we had many opportunities to interact.
As the obits make clear, Dan didn’t identify primarily as a critic—but he had strong ideas on what criticism is all about. Still, the late Martin Williams once told me, “I’m a critic, but Dan is really a historian.” He certainly was—and a brilliant one.
Dan seemed to have been at every jazz event ever held. I used to tease him about that. But he surprised me one day when I asked him to speak with my graduate students, and I was about to show a scene from the film A Man Called Adam (released in 1966), starring Sammy Davis, Jr. “I’m in there,” he said! In the party scene, Mel Tormé sings “All That Jazz” by Benny Carter, with words by Al Stillman, to a crowd of musicians and friends. Louis Armstrong is there, and Joe Williams, and comedian Jack E. Leonard takes up a lot of space (the bald man with glasses). And you’ll recognize others. But for today, look for Dan—here are two stills:
Look for him on the center right at 1:23, 1:43, and on the far right from 1:57-2:25! Here’s the excerpt:
I asked Dan how he got into this movie. He said “They put out a call in jazz circles for anybody who wanted to be in a scene they were filming.” And, being Dan, of course he heard about it.
Two years ago, in one of our email exchanges, Dan wrote to me, “I’m hanging in there at an age I’d never have thought I’d reach.”
We’re very glad that he did!
All the best,
Lewis
I was hired by Dan in January of 1970 as Associate Editor (there were, in reality, only two full-time editorial staffers at the Chicago headquarters--and birthplace--of Down Beat). I had just been discharged after 4 years with the Air Force Band of the Midwest (clarinet, tenor, flute) and worked a grand total of three weeks at the Chicago Tribune when the DB spot opened up. I had to take it!
When Ira Gitler, who manned the NY office, was fired about six months later, it was decided to move Dan to NY where the DB editor always should have been--and leave the bulk of the editorial production to me and give me the title of Managing Editor. Somehow it worked, with daily phone calls and page proofs sent by overnight express mail. (Sometimes they never arrived in NY until the mag went to press, so it was all up to me and me alone to give the pages one final look!)
I loved that man, learned a ton from him, valued his high degree of trust in me, and on the last day of 1972--our last phone call before I left to return to the Chicago Tribune--he was in tears. My successor's inadequacy so stressed him that he left about 4-5 months later to take, I believe, the Rutgers gig. I thought he'd be DB editor for life (one of the reasons I accepted the Tribune offer to return), but many things in life turn out quite differently than we think.
How many people can say they worked closely with a man who was once invited to Louis Armstrong's house in Queens as Pops' sole dinner guest and with Pops doing the cooking (N'awlins style, of course). If that doesn't tell you the esteem in which he was held by the royalty of jazz, nothing will.
R.I.P., my good friend and mentor!
Jim Szantor
Lake Barrington, IL
Blogger Michael Steinman at jazzlives.blogspot.com has over the last several years done a series of interviews with Dan which I encourage people to check out.