8-Time Grammy Winner Dies of Heart Failure: Dan Morgenstern Was 94

Dan Morgenstern, the acclaimed writer who won eight Grammys in his career, has died. Morgenstern’s son Josh told The New York Times that he died from heart failure in a New York City hospital on Saturday. He was 94.

Morgenstern was one of the most prominent jazz writers in the world, covering the genre for decades, including as editor of DownBeat. He also authored the books Jazz People and Living with Jazz. He became a mainstay in the Best Album Notes category at the Grammys, receiving 17 nominations in his career.

He won the award eight times for his linear notes for Art Tatum’s God Is in the House, Coleman Hawkins’ The Hawk Flies, the compilation The Changing Face of Harlem, Erroll Garner’s Erroll Garner: Master of the Keyboard, Clifford Brown’s Brownie: The Complete Emarcy Recordings of Clifford Brown, Louis Armstrong’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Fats Waller’s If You Got to Ask, You Ain’t Got It!, and Louis Armstrong’s The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935-1946).

Fellow writers mourned Morgenstern with online tributes after his death, including Ted Gioia and Sheila E. Anderson.

“RIP Dan Morgenstern, who leaves us at age 94. Nobody did more to guide and mentor other jazz writers (me included),” Gioia wrote. “Dan was a great scholar and a generous man. He will be deeply mourned by the jazz community-this loss feels irreplaceable.”

Anderson added, “Sad news, indeed!!! So happy to have known Dan for many years and to be an inaugural Rutgers Dan Morgenstern fellow! He gave us so much!!!”

The Independent book critic Martin Chilton wrote, “Sad to hear of the death of Dan Morgenstern, a superb jazz journalist and historian – he and my late father loved discussing music”