On Dec. 13th, Morgenstern will receive his third Deems Taylor Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for his liner notes on Fats Waller for If You Got to Ask, You Ain't Got It!" Last month, in its November 2007 edition, Down Beat magazine announced that Morgenstern is the 27th recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award, and in September, The Recording Academy honored Morgenstern with a Legacy Award.
These kudos are but the latest bestowed upon Morgenstern in recognition of his lifetime of contributions to jazz.
In January 2007, Morgenstern, a jazz historian, writer, and educator, stood alongside other jazz luminaries on a stage in New York the only non-musician in the group as he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, receiving the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. The New York Times calls the Jazz Master designation the nations highest jazz honor. In February 2007, he won his seventh Grammy award, for Best Album Notes, for If You Got to Ask, You Ain't Got It!"
In January 2006 Morgenstern received his second Deems Taylor Award for outstanding print, broadcast and new media coverage of music from ASCAP for his book, Living With Jazz (Pantheon Books, November 2004), which chronicles more than five decades of his jazz writings. He also received the Deems Taylor Award in 1977 for his book, Jazz People.
Morgensterns extensive knowledge of jazz led famed documentarian Ken Burns to ask Morgenstern to act as senior adviser to his 10-part PBS series, Jazz." Morgenstern co-produces and co-hosts the institutes Jazz from the Archives, on WBGO-FM, and co-hosts the monthly Jazz Research Roundtable at Rutgers-Newark.
Morgensterns career includes seven years as editor of Down Beat magazine, stints as jazz reviewer for the New York Post and record-reviewer for the Chicago Sun Times, and editor of the Annual Review of Jazz Studies and the monograph series Studies in Jazz. He has written hundreds of articles, and co-authored or contributed to numerous jazz books.
The Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, the worlds most extensive jazz archives, is part of the Rutgers University Libraries. The IJS is housed in the John Cotton Dana Library on the Newark campus of Rutgers, at 185 University Ave.:jazz