Ted Gioia is a cultural critic, music historian, record producer, and jazz pianist. He has published 12 books, translated into 9 languages, and is author of the popular Substack newsletter The Honest Broker.
Gioia has been awarded the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, the Virgil Thomson Award, the Robert Palmer-Helen Oakley Dance Award for Excellence in Writing, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Journalists Association.
He holds degrees from Stanford and Oxford, and previously taught at Stanford University.
Ted at Stanford University, 1991. Additional photos are available on the Publicity Photos page.
What the Critics Say About Ted Gioia
“In virtually every instance, Gioia delivers.”
The Atlantic Monthly
“A radiantly accomplished writer.”
Wall Street Journal
“He invites the critic’s cliché wonderfully erudite, and earns it, not to mention the even cheaper critical term provocative, though he earns that, too.”
The New Yorker
“[Gioia] is one of the outstanding music historians in America.”
Dallas Morning News
“Thoughtful and thought-provoking.”
New York Times
“[Gioia’s] prose moves with enough velocity and packs enough insight to keep even jaded readers interested.”
Billboard
Selected online articles
How I Became the Honest Broker
Why Do They Burn a Man at Burning Man?
Is Old Music Killing New Music?
I Defend the Humanities to Medical Students
I Presided at the Birth of Google
The Four Comebacks of Art Pepper
Beauty Is the Most Dangerous Thing in Culture
How to Commit Murder in a Locked Room
The Origins of Country Music in the Neolithic Era
Science Fiction Was My Midlife Crisis
How I Became Famous in My Neighborhood
How Thomas Edison Changed Singing
You Don’t Need a Mentor—Find a Nemesis Instead
The Brilliant Bad Decisions of John Luther Adams
The Woman Who Plays Music for the Dying
Why I Ran Away from Philosophy
I Ask Seven Heretical Questions About Progress
The Music Critic Who Tried to Disappear
The Man Who Put Out Fires with Music
The Enigma of Rickie Lee Jones
How Music Created Silicon Valley