Director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University since 1976, Dan Morgenstern is a jazz historian, author, editor, and archivist active in the jazz field since 1958. The Institute of Jazz Studies is the largest collection of jazz-related materials anywhere. Morgenstern is co-editor of the ANNUAL REVIEW OF JAZZ STUDIES and the monograph series STUDIES IN JAZZ, published jointly by the IJS and Scarecrow Press. The author of JAZZ PEOPLE (DaCapo Press), Morgenstern still writes frequently about jazz.

He was chief editor of DOWN BEAT from 1967 to 1973 and served as New York editor from 1964, prior to which he edited the periodicals METRONOME and JAZZ. He has been jazz critic for the NEW YORK POST, record reviewer for the CHICAGO SUN TIMES, and New York correspondent and columnist for England's JAZZ JOURNAL and Japan's SWING JOURNAL. He has contributed to reference works including the NEW GROVE DICTIONARY OF JAZZ, and DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN MUSIC, the AFRICAN-AMERICAN ALMANAC, and the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA BOOK OF THE YEAR, and to such anthologies as READING JAZZ, SETTING THE TEMPO, THE LOUIS ARMSTRONG COMPANION, THE DUKE ELLINGTON READER, THE MILES DAVIS COMPANION, and THE LESTER YOUNG READER.

Morgenstern has taught jazz history at the Peabody Institute at John Hopkins University, at Brooklyn College (where he was also a visiting professor ath the Institute for Studies in American Music), at New York University, and at the Schweitzer Institute of Music in Idaho. He served of the faculties of the Institutes in Jazz Criticism jointly sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and the Music Critics Association, and is on the faculty of the Masters Program in Jazz History and Research at Rutgers University.

Morgenstern has also been active in concert production (JAZZ IN THE GARDEN, a celebrated summer series at New York's Museum of Modern Art, 1961-1966); JAZZ ON BROADWAY, a mini-series at the Little Theater in 1963 which returned Earl Hines to the spotlight, and a number of events for George Wein's Festival Productions; broadcasting (co-producer of the television series JUST JAZZ, PBS, 1971; producer-host of THE SCOPE OF JAZZ, Pacifica Network, 1962-1967; and co-producer and co-host of JAZZ FROM THE ARCHIVES on WBGO-FM since 1979); and record reissue production (the 100-LP series, THE GREATEST JAZZ RECORDINGS OF ALL TIME for the Franklin Mint Record Society on behalf of the Institute of Jazz Studies, and the boxed sets LOUIS ARMSTRONG: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, and HOT JAZZ ON BLUE NOTE, a.o.).

Morgenstern served as panel co-chair, panelist, and consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts' Jazz Program; is a former vice president and trustee of the Recording Academy (NARAS); was a co-founder of the Jazz Institute of Chicago; served on the boards of the New York Jazz Museum and the American Jazz Orchestra, and is a director of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and the Mary Lou Williams Foundation. He has been a member of Denmark's International JAZZPAR Prize Committee since its inception in 1989.

A prolific annotator of record albums, Morgenstern has won six Grammy Awards for Best Album Notes (1973, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1991, and 1995). He received ASCAP's Deems Taylor Award for JAZZ PEOPLE. Born in Germany and reared in Austria and Denmark, Morgenstern came to the U.S. in 1947.