Eric Nisenson (February 12, 1946 - August 15, 2003) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author and
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
historian. The son of inventor Jules Nisenson, he was born in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
and raised in
Rye, New YorkRye is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is separate from the town of Rye which is larger than the city. Rye city, formerly the village of Rye, was part of the town until 1942, when it was received its charter as a city, the most recent to be issued in New York...
. He attended
New York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian, research university in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
(NYU), where he studied English, and then moved to San Francisco where he worked on the staffs of alternative publications including
The Berkeley Barb and
Heliotrope.
Nisenson became a lifelong lover of jazz at the age of 15, when he listened to
trumpetThe trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC...
er
Miles DavisMiles Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.Widely considered one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music including cool jazz, hard bop, free jazz...
's 1959 album
Kind of BlueKind of Blue is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released August 17, 1959 on Columbia Records in the United States. Recording sessions for the album took place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City on March 2 and April 22, 1959. Production was handled entirely by...
.
Eric Nisenson (February 12, 1946 - August 15, 2003) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author and
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
historian. The son of inventor Jules Nisenson, he was born in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
and raised in
Rye, New YorkRye is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is separate from the town of Rye which is larger than the city. Rye city, formerly the village of Rye, was part of the town until 1942, when it was received its charter as a city, the most recent to be issued in New York...
. He attended
New York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian, research university in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
(NYU), where he studied English, and then moved to San Francisco where he worked on the staffs of alternative publications including
The Berkeley Barb and
Heliotrope.
Nisenson became a lifelong lover of jazz at the age of 15, when he listened to
trumpetThe trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC...
er
Miles DavisMiles Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.Widely considered one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music including cool jazz, hard bop, free jazz...
's 1959 album
Kind of BlueKind of Blue is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released August 17, 1959 on Columbia Records in the United States. Recording sessions for the album took place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City on March 2 and April 22, 1959. Production was handled entirely by...
. In the early 1970s, after he had moved back to New York, Nisenson was introduced to Davis. Although, as Nisenson recounts, he was "terrified" of Davis the first time he met him,
http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=nisenson.html the two men became friends, and Davis asked Nisenson to write his official biography. By the time
Round About Midnight: A Portrait of Miles Davis was published in 1982, however, the friendship had ended (Davis was not easy to get along with, though Nisenson wrote in a second revision of the biography, that Miles had deserted him as
Cicely TysonCicely Tyson is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for appearances in the film Sounder and the television specials The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots.-Personal life:...
was determined for Miles to start a new lifestyle and cut his ties with the past).
In 1993 Nisenson published a biography of
saxophonistThe saxophone is a conical-bored transposing musical instrument considered a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and are played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax in 1841...
John ColtraneJohn William "Trane" Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer.Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
entitled
Ascension: John Coltrane and his Quest, but by that time he had been diagnosed with a form of
leukemiaLeukemia is a cancer of the blood or bone marrow and is characterized by an abnormal proliferation of blood cells, usually white blood cells . Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
and was struggling with the disease and complications arising from it. The illness largely kept Nisenson confined to his house, but as he fought it he focused increasingly on his work. In 1997 he published
Blue: The Murder of Jazz, a critical work arguing that conservative musicians and record labels are stifling the innovation that makes jazz distinctive. The year 2000 saw two new works from Nisenson,
The Making of Kind of Blue, which focuses on the inspiration behind the landmark album; and a biography of saxophonist
Sonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians of the post-bebop era, Rollins' long, prolific career began at the age of 11, and he was playing with piano legend Thelonious Monk before reaching...
called
Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation.
Nisenson died on August 15, 2003 of kidney failure related to his
leukemiaLeukemia is a cancer of the blood or bone marrow and is characterized by an abnormal proliferation of blood cells, usually white blood cells . Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
. At the time of his death he was working on a biography of
pianistThe piano is a musical instrument which is played by means of a keyboard. Widely used in Western music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
Dave BrubeckDavid Warren Brubeck , known as Dave Brubeck, is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational...
and a study of
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
ian music and culture.
Published works
- Round About Midnight: A Portrait of Miles Davis
- Ascension: John Coltrane and his Quest
- Blue: The Murder of Jazz
- The Making of Kind of Blue
- Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation