4859 W El Segundo Blvd, Hawthorne, CA 90250, United States
Hawthorne High School where Ted Gioia studied.
College/University
Gallery of Ted Gioia
450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, United States
Stanford University where Ted Gioia received a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Business Administration degree.
Gallery of Ted Gioia
University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, United Kingdom
The University of Oxford where Ted Gioia received a degree.
Career
Gallery of Ted Gioia
1992
Ted Gioia in 1992.
Gallery of Ted Gioia
2016
Ted Gioia at film shoot at Fantasy studio in Berkeley in May 2016.
Gallery of Ted Gioia
2016
Ted Gioia in Austin, Texas in 2016.
Gallery of Ted Gioia
2016
Ted Gioia in Austin, Texas in 2016.
Gallery of Ted Gioia
2016
Ted Gioia in Austin, Texas in 2016.
Gallery of Ted Gioia
2017
Ted Gioia with Howard Mandel at the JJA Jazz Award Banquet on June 6, 2017, at Golden Unicorn Restaurant.
Gallery of Ted Gioia
2017
Ted Gioia with David Cowles, Zev Feldman, Jack Kleinsinger, Wadada Leo Smith, Mark Ruffin, Ashley Kahn, Ethan Iverson, Howard Mandel, Frank Stewart at the JJA Jazz Award Banquet on June 6, 2017, at Golden Unicorn Restaurant.
Gallery of Ted Gioia
2017
Ted Gioia with Brian Lynch and Rene Marie at the JJA Jazz Award Banquet on June 6, 2017, at Golden Unicorn Restaurant.
Ted Gioia with David Cowles, Zev Feldman, Jack Kleinsinger, Wadada Leo Smith, Mark Ruffin, Ashley Kahn, Ethan Iverson, Howard Mandel, Frank Stewart at the JJA Jazz Award Banquet on June 6, 2017, at Golden Unicorn Restaurant.
The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture
(By the 1930s, the radio and phonograph had transformed th...)
By the 1930s, the radio and phonograph had transformed the experience of music in America from unique, live performances to the repetitive playing or broadcasting of records. In an age of mechanical reproduction, music was everywhere, but as Ted Gioia points out in this brilliant new volume, its impact was watered down, debased. Jazz, according to Gioia, stands opposed to this dehumanizing trend, emphasizing improvisation and the human element (the performer) over the work of art. Taking a wide-ranging approach rare in jazz criticism, Gioia draws upon fields as disparate as literary criticism, art history, sociology, and aesthetic philosophy as he places jazz within the turbulent cultural environment of the 20th century.
West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960
(All of these musicians fought their way back over the nex...)
All of these musicians fought their way back over the next decade, and their success in re-establishing themselves as important artists was perhaps the first signal, initially unrecognized as such, that a re-evaluation of the earlier West Coast scene was underway. Less fortunate than these few were West Coasters such as Sonny Criss, Harold Land, Curtis Counce, Carl Perkins, Lennie Niehaus, Roy Porter, Teddy Edwards, Gerald Wilson, and those others whose careers languished without achieving either a later revival or even an early brief taste of fame. Certainly, some West Coast jazz players have been awarded a central place in jazz history, but invariably they have been those who, like Charles Mingus or Eric Dolphy, left California for Manhattan. Those who stayed behind were, for the most part, left behind. The time has come for a critical re-evaluation of this body of work.
(Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told b...)
Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history - Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, cool jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie's advocacy of modern jazz in the 1940s, Miles Davis's 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality, Pat Metheny's visionary extension of jazz-rock fusion, the contemporary sounds of Wynton Marsalis, and the post-modernists of the current day. Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of these and many other great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created.
(All societies have relied on music to transform the exper...)
All societies have relied on music to transform the experience of work. Song accompanied the farmer’s labors, calmed the herder’s flock, and set in motion the spinner’s wheel. Today this tradition continues. Music blares on the shop floor; the song accompanies transactions in the retail store; the radio keeps the trucker going on the long-distance haul. Ted Gioia tells the story of work songs from prehistoric times to the present. Vocation by vocation, Gioia focuses attention on the rhythms and melodies that have attended tasks such as the cultivation of crops, the raising and lowering of sails, the swinging of hammers, the felling of trees. In an engaging, conversational writing style, he synthesizes a breathtaking amount of material, not only from songbooks and recordings but also from travel literature, historical accounts, slave narratives, folklore, labor union writings, and more.
(While the first healers were musicians who relied on rhyt...)
While the first healers were musicians who relied on rhythm and song to help cure the sick, overtime Western thinkers and doctors lost touch with these traditions. In the West, for almost two millennia, the roles of the healer and the musician have been strictly separated. Until recently, that is. Over the past few decades, there has been a resurgence of interest in healing music. In the midst of this nascent revival, Ted Gioia, a musician, composer, and widely praised author offers the first detailed exploration of the uses of music for curative purposes from ancient times to the present. Gioia’s inquiry into the restorative powers of sound moves effortlessly from the history of shamanism to the role of Orpheus as a mythical figure linking Eastern and Western ideas about therapeutic music, and from Native American healing ceremonies to what clinical studies can reveal about the efficacy of contemporary methods of sonic healing.
(In this history, Ted Gioia gives the rare combination of ...)
In this history, Ted Gioia gives the rare combination of a tome that is both deeply informative and enjoyable to read. From the field hollers of nineteenth-century plantations to Muddy Waters and B.B. King, Delta Blues delves into the uneasy mix of race and money at the point where traditional music became commercial and bluesmen found new audiences of thousands. Combining extensive fieldwork, archival research, interviews with living musicians, and first-person accounts, this engrossing narrative is flavored with insightful and vivid musical descriptions that ensure an understanding of not only the musicians but the music itself.
(It's hard to imagine that "the cool" could ever go out of...)
It's hard to imagine that "the cool" could ever go out of style. After all, cool is style. Isn't it? And it may be harder to imagine a world where people no longer aspire to coolness. In this intriguing cultural history, nationally acclaimed author Ted Gioia shows why cool is not a timeless concept and how it has begun to lose meaning and fade into history. Gioia deftly argues that what began in the Jazz Age and became iconic in the 1950s with Miles Davis, James Dean, and others has been manipulated, stretched, and pushed to a breaking point - not just in our media, entertainment, and fashion industries, but also by corporations, political leaders, and social institutions. Tolling the death knell for the cool, this thought-provoking book reveals how and why a new cultural tone is emerging, one marked by sincerity, earnestness, and a quest for authenticity.
(The Jazz Standards, a comprehensive guide to the most imp...)
The Jazz Standards, a comprehensive guide to the most important jazz compositions, is a unique resource, a browser's companion, and an invaluable introduction to the art form. This essential book for music lovers tells the story of more than 250 key jazz songs and includes a listening guide to more than 2,000 recordings. Many books recommend jazz CDs or discuss musicians and styles, but this is the first to tell the story of the songs themselves. The fan who wants to know more about a jazz song heard at the club or on the radio will find this book indispensable. Musicians who play these songs night after night now have a handy guide, outlining their history and significance and telling how they have been performed by different generations of jazz artists. Students learning about jazz standards now have complete reference work for all of these cornerstones of the repertoire.
(In Love Songs: The Hidden History, Ted Gioia uncovers the...)
In Love Songs: The Hidden History, Ted Gioia uncovers the unexplored story of the love song for the first time. Drawing on two decades of research, Gioia presents the full range of love songs, from the fertility rites of ancient cultures to the sexualized YouTube videos of the present day. The book traces the battles over each new insurgency in the music of love - whether spurred by wandering scholars of medieval days or by four lads from Liverpool in more recent times. In these pages, Gioia reveals that the tenderest music has, in different eras, driven many of the most heated cultural conflicts, and how the humble love song has played a key role in expanding the sphere of individualism and personal autonomy in societies around the world.
(In How to Listen to Jazz, Ted Gioia presents a lively int...)
In How to Listen to Jazz, Ted Gioia presents a lively introduction to one of America's premier art forms. He tells us what to listen for in a performance and includes a guide to today's leading jazz musicians. From Louis Armstrong's innovative sounds to the jazz-rock fusion of Miles Davis, Gioia covers the music's history and reveals the building blocks of improvisation. A true love letter to jazz by a foremost expert, How to Listen to Jazz is a must-read for anyone who's ever wanted to understand and better appreciate America's greatest contribution to music.
(Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the...)
Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, historian Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs. Gioia tells a four-thousand-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval. He shows how social outcasts have repeatedly become trailblazers of musical expression: slaves and their descendants, for instance, have repeatedly reinvented music, from ancient times all the way to the jazz, reggae, and hip-hop sounds of the current day.
Ted Gioia is an American musician and author and has published more than ten non-fiction books. He is a jazz musician, as well, and one of the founders of Stanford University's jazz studies program and the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians.
Background
Ted Gioia was born on October 21, 1957, in Hawthorne, California, United States. He is the son of Michael Gioia and Dorothy Ortez. He was raised in a Sicilian-Mexican household in Hawthorne, California, a working-class neighborhood in the South-Central area of Los Angeles. He has an older brother, Dana Gioia.
Education
Gioia was valedictorian and a National Merit Scholar at Hawthorne High School. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English graduating with honors and distinction from Stanford University in 1979. After that, Gioia received a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics with first-class honors from Oxford University in 1981. In 1983 he received a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University.
Ted Gioia began his career serving on the faculty of Stanford University. He was an editor of Stanford’s literary magazine Sequoia and wrote regularly for the Stanford Daily. In the 1980s he worked with Stanford's Department of Music to establish a formal jazz studies program, and served on the faculty alongside artist-in-residence Stan Getz, for several years. Gioia also worked extensively as a jazz pianist during this period and designed and taught a class on jazz at Stanford while still an undergraduate. Around this time, his first book The Imperfect Art (1988) was published. Follow-up book West Coast Jazz (1992) is frequently acknowledged as one of the classics of the jazz literature. West Coast Jazz was re-issued in an expanded edition in 1998 and remains the definitive work on the subject.
Gioia released his first recording as a jazz pianist in 1989 - The End of the Open Road, a trio recording with Eddie Moore and Larry Grenadier - and received airplay on more than 500 radio stations in the United States. Gioia also produced a series of recordings featuring other West Coast jazz musicians. Gioia has since recorded two more CDs, Tango Cool (1989) and The City is a Chinese Vase (1999).
He was published in the leading newspapers, periodicals and websites, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, The American Scholar, Music Quarterly, The Daily Beast, Bookforum, Salon, Dallas Morning News, San Francisco Chronicle, Popular Music, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, The Atlantic Monthly, City Journal, The Threepenny Review, PopMatters, and The Hudson Review. Gioia's book Love Songs: The Hidden History stands out as one of the most influential music history books of recent years. This path-breaking book represents the first complete survey of 5,000 years of the music of romance, courtship, and sexuality. Gioia has also given talks at the Library of Congress, the American Jazz Museum, SF Jazz, the Barcelona Jazz Festival, the NY Times Center, Stanford University and other locales in the US and abroad.
In 2006, Gioia published two books simultaneously, Work Songs and Healing Songs, the result of more than a decade of research into traditional music. From 2007 until 2010, Gioia served as founding president, editor and resident blogger for www.jazz.com, a popular web music media portal. He has also written extensively on popular culture, most notably in his 2009 book The Birth (and the Death) of Cool, a work of cultural criticism and a historical survey of hipness. In 2012, Gioia released the bestselling The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire. The book received early praise from Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins, and was lauded by the Wall Street Journal as "the first general-interest, wide-ranging and authoritative guide to the basic contemporary jazz canon."
In the business world, Gioia has consulted to Fortune 500 companies while working for McKinsey and the Boston Consulting Group. He helped Sola International complete an LBO and IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in the 1990s. He has undertaken business projects in 25 countries on five continents and has managed large businesses (up to $200 million in revenues). While working amidst the venture capital community on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley, Gioia stood out from the crowd as the "guy with the piano in his office."
Gioia's current interests cover a wide range of areas. He is composing a series of solo piano pieces that draw both from jazz and classical music traditions. He is a frequent guest speaker at colleges and conferences and conducts workshops on creativity. Gioia also reviews contemporary fiction for various periodicals. His more recent book is Music: A Subversive History (2019). Music: A Subversive History offers a bold alternative view of the story of music - focusing on the power of a song like a force of social change and enchantment. It explores how musical revolutions get assimilated by the same mainstream institutions that previously attacked them, and takes seriously aspects of song that are seldom discussed in music history books, including its deep connections to sexuality, magic, trance and alternative mind states, healing, social control, generational conflict, political unrest, even violence and warfare. Music: A Subversive History is the result of more than a quarter-century of research.
(It's hard to imagine that "the cool" could ever go out of...)
2009
Views
Over the years, Ted Gioia has tried every possible writing routine. His first book was written longhand while sitting at a desk in a library - and he had to hire a typist to turn his scribblings into a publishable manuscript. By the time, he wrote his second book, he had purchased one of the very first Apple computers, but adapting to the digital age was challenging. The floppy disk containing two chapters of that book somehow got damaged, and Gioia had to recreate the text from various notes and earlier drafts. But he persisted with digital technology, and now can’t imagine working without it. Today he writes in a quiet home office with two computers, and his large personal library near at hand for consultation. The only essential pre-writing ritual for him is a cup of coffee - preferably Major Dickason’s Blend from Peet’s. Other pre-writing rituals can easily become distractions for him, so he avoids them. But the coffee is essential. The fuel for his books is a 50/50 mix of dark roast java and printer toner. His heroes include Lionel Trilling, Susan Sontag, Isaiah Berlin, Charles Taylor, and Bruce Chatwin. He admires them for their combination of persuasive writing, uncommon wisdom, and intense commitment.
Quotations:
"I've never been big fan of blues music."
"I spend more hours reading than I do writing. I also devote a considerable amount of time to a host of other experiences that stimulate thinking and creativity. When I meet people who complain that they lack ideas for writing or suffer from blockages, I find that they invariably spend too much energy fretting about their output, and aren’t sufficiently focused on the inputs any author needs in order to thrive."
"Jazz at this time is still mostly a group effort."
"As recently as the twentieth century, some cultures retained religious prohibitions asserting the “uncleanliness” of believers eating at the same table as musicians."
"The work of art always requires us to adapt to it - and in this manner can be distinguished from escapism or shallow entertainment, which instead aims to adapt to the audience, to give the public exactly what it wants. We can tell that we are encountering a real work of art by the degree to which it resists subjectivity."
Personality
Ted Gioia reads a fairly wide range of books and periodicals. Also, he often spends months focused primarily on a single topic - for example, aesthetic philosophy, or shamanism, or postmodern fiction, or medieval history, or Native American music, or some other subject that doesn’t show up on the bestseller list.
Quotes from others about the person
"Mr. Gioia could not have done a better job. Through him, jazz might even find new devotees."