Swing to Bop

Ira Gitler was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 18, 1928. He attended the University of Missouri but dropped out before graduating to take a job with the jazz label Prestige Records in 1950. He packed and unpacked 78s, did promotional work, and swept the floors. In 1951, he wrote his first liner notes for Swingin' with Zoot Sims and produced his first recording session for the saxophonist Sonny Rollins.

Gitler left the label in the mid-1950s to pursue freelance writing. His criticism appeared regularly in publications like DownBeat and JazzTimes. He wrote liner notes for more than 700 albums. He wrote several books including Jazz Masters of the 40s, Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s, and The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz written with Leonard Feather. In 2017, Gitler was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

He was also passionate about ice hockey. His book, Blood on the Ice: Hockey's Most Violent Moments, was published in 1974. He wrote for the program sold to fans at Ranger games at Madison Square Garden. He died on February 23, 2019 at the age of 90.

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