Ira Gitler, Influential Jazz Critic and Historian, Dies at 90

Mr. Giddins said that Mr. Gitler’s liner notes had helped cement his reputation. “Those notes are as much a part of those albums as the sequencing of tracks and the cover art,” he said.

Mr. Gitler had a close association with Mr. Feather, the longtime jazz critic for The Los Angeles Times. He was an assistant on Mr. Feather’s “The New Encyclopedia of Jazz” (1960), and he completed “The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz” (1999) after Mr. Feather’s death in 1994 and was credited as co-author.

On his own, Mr. Gitler wrote “Jazz Masters of the 40s” (1966) and “Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s” (1985).

As passionate as Mr. Gitler was about jazz, he was equally passionate about another pursuit: ice hockey. He played for and coached an amateur-league team, Gitler’s Gorillas, and wrote “Blood on the Ice: Hockey’s Most Violent Moments” (1974). He also wrote for the program sold to fans at Ranger games at Madison Square Garden.

Stan Fischler, a longtime hockey writer and commentator and a friend of Mr. Gitler’s, recalled on Twitter that a high point of Mr. Gitler’s avocation was playing defense on a fantasy hockey team in 1984 in Lake Placid, N.Y., with the Hall of Famers Gordie Howe and Bill Gadsby.

Mr. Fischler wrote that Gadsby, also a defenseman, was worried that Mr. Gitler would not be able to help hold their team’s one-goal lead when he skated onto the ice in the final minute of the game. “As Bill skated past Ira,” he wrote, “Gadsby stopped, leaned over and uttered the deathless words: ‘Ira, just get in the way!’ ” The lead held.

In addition to his son, Mr. Gitler is survived by his wife, Mary Jo (Schwalbach) Gitler, an artist, and two grandchildren.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/obituaries/ira-gitler-dead.html?partner=rss&emc=rss