Ted Gioia was raised in Hawhtorne, California, a working class neighborhood
in the South-Central area of Los Anglees county. Jazz was not part of
Hawthorne's nightlife - indeed, the city is perhaps best known as hometown
to the Beach Boys. But while his friends and classmates listened to surf
and soul music, Gioia was practicing the piano and checking out the various
jazz books and recordings found in the local public library.
While a student at Stanford University in the late 1970s, Gioia continued
his study of jazz, practicing the piano several hours per day, in addition
to pursuing a full course of studies. At age twenty, while still an
undergraduate, Gioia began teaching accredited courses on jazz for Stanford
students. He also edited Stanford's literary magazine, and appeared on
televsion as a member of the team which defeated Yale to win the national
College Bowl tournament.
After receiving his degree at Stanford, Gioia earned a scholarship to study
philosophy at Oxford University in England, where he graduated with first
class honors in 1981. Gioia also later completed the MBA program at
Stanford's Graduate School of Business. In the mid-1980s, Gioia 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.
Around this time, Gioia's first book was published by Oxford University
Press, The Imperfect Art, which was awarded the ASCAP-Deems Taylor award.
Gioia also released his first recording as a jazz pianist, The End of the
Open Road, a trio recording with Eddie Moore and Larry Grenadier, and
produced a series of recordings featuring other West Coast jazz musicians.
Gioia's second book, West Coast Jazz, resulted from his interest in probing
the jazz tradition of his native region. Meticulously researched, West
Coast Jazz helped spur a critical re-evaluation of this body of music and
led the way for other later efforts to preserve California's jazz heritage.
West Coast Jazz was re-issued in an expanded edition by University of
California Press last year.
Gioia's most recent book, The History of Jazz, was selected as one of the
twenty best books of the year by Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post,
and has earned praise for its expansive and balanced survey of the entire
jazz tradition from Buddy Bolden to Wynton Marsalis.
Gioia's current interests cover a wide range of musical areas. He is
composing a series of solo piano pieces that draw both from jazz and
classical music traditions. He is exploring the myriad ways in which music
is embedded in social institutions and practices, with particular emphasis
on work songs and the use of music in healing and ritual. He is deeply
interested in Latin American musical traditions, especially those of Brazil
and Argentina. Finally, he is researching the area of creative process -
with the hope of learning whether the techniques used by improvising jazz
musicians can be used by others to enhance their creativity.
