Ralph J. Gleason (1917-1975) was an influential American jazz and pop music critic. He contributed for many years to the San Francisco Chronicle and was a founding editor of Rolling Stone. 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ... Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and mostly distributed commercially. ... The San Francisco Chronicle, the self-described Voice of the West, is Northern Californias largest newspaper. ... The Rolling Stone logo, designed by Rick Griffin. ...

Gleason was born in New York City and attended Columbia University. At the end of the 1940s, he moved to San Francisco and began contributing to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1950, initiated the first regular coverage of jazz and pop music and in the mainstream US media. Gleason was the first critic to review folk, pop, and jazz concerts with the same attention and space as was given to classical music. He did interviews with such luminaries as Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, and Fats Domino. Gleason was one of the first critics to perceive the importance of Lenny Bruce, Bob Dylan, and Miles Davis. Nickname: The Big Apple, The Capital of the World Official website: City of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area Total 468. ... Columbia University is a private university in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. ... For details about the famous earthquake, refer to the article 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. ... Folk Music, in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the common people. ... Hank Williams Sr. ... Elvis redirects here. ... Fats Domino Antoine Dominique Fats Domino (born February 26, 1928 in New Orleans, Louisiana), is a classic R&B and rock and roll singer, songwriter and pianist. ... Arrested after impersonating a priest in 1951. ... Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and poet whose enduring contributions to American song are often compared, in fame and influence, to those of Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams. ... Davis 1959 album Kind of Blue, likely the best-selling jazz album ever. ...

Gleason was both an observor and a contributor to what is sometimes termed the San Francisco Renaissance, the era of increased cultural vitality in that city which began in the mid-1950s and fully bloomed in the mid-to-late 1960s. In the later 1960s, Gleason was a widely respected commentator and he chose to write supportively of the better cut of the Bay Area rock bands, such as the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. However, Gleason was sometimes criticized for minimizing the importance of or simply ignoring acts from Los Angeles. The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centred around that city and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. ... Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band from San Francisco, a pioneer of the LSD-influenced psychedelic rock movement. ... The Grateful Dead was an American psychedelia-influenced rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco. ... This article is about the largest city in California. ...

In 1967, Gleason and Jann Wenner founded the bi-weekly music magazine, Rolling Stone, to which he contributed until his death in 1975. For ten years, he also wrote syndicated weekly columns on jazz and pop music, which ran in the New York Post and many other papers throughout the US and Europe. For twelve years, he was an associate editor and critic for the leading jazz publication, Down Beat. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The New York Post is one of the oldest newspapers published in the United States. ... Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to jazz. ...

Gleason's articles also appeared other publications including the New York Times, The Guardian, The Times, New Statesman, Evergreen Review, American Scholar, Saturday Review, New York Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun Times, Sydney Herald, Playboy, Esquire, Variety, and Stereo. The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ... The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom. ... The New Statesman is a left-of-centre political weekly published in London. ... The New York Herald Tribune was a newspaper created in 1922 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. ... The Los Angeles Times (also known as the LA Times) is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California and distributed throughout the western United States. ... Chicago Sun-Times The Chicago Sun-Times is an American newspaper publishing out of Chicago, Illinois. ... Classic Playboy logo Playboy is an adult entertainment magazine, founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, which has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc. ... Cover of an issue of Esquire magazine. ... Variety is a daily magazine for the entertainment industry. ...

For National Educational Television (now known as PBS), Gleason produced a series of twenty-eight programs on jazz and blues, Jazz Casual [1], featuring B.B. King, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Sonny Rollins, among others. The series ran from 1961 to 1968. He also produced a two-hour documentary on Duke Ellington, which was twice nominated for an Emmy. Other films for television included a four-part series on the Monterey Jazz Festival, the first documentary for television on pop music, Anatomy of a Hit, and a two-hour performance and documentary on San Francisco rock, Go Ride the Music and A Night At The Family Dog. The color NET logo was incorporated into a model building at the beginning and end of Mister Rogers Neighborhood from 1969 to 1970. ... PBS re-directs here; for alternate uses see PBS (disambiguation) PBS logo The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service with 349 member TV stations in the United States. ... Riley B. King aka B. B. King (b. ... John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. ... Brubeck in 1954 David Warren (Dave) Brubeck (born December 6, 1920 in Concord, California) is an American jazz pianist who has written a number of jazz standards, including In Your Own Sweet Way and The Duke. ... The Modern Jazz Quartet was established in 1952 by Milt Jackson (vibraphone), John Lewis (piano, musical director), Percy Heath (bass), and Kenny Clarke (drums). ... James (Jimmy) Witherspoon (1923-1997) was an American blues singer. ... An early Rollins picture graces the cover of Volume One Theodore Walter (Sonny) Rollins (born September 7, 1930 in New York City) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. ... Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington (April 29, 1899–May 24, 1974), also known simply as Duke (see Jazz royalty), was an American jazz composer, pianist, and bandleader. ... An Emmy Award. ...

• Read a Ralph J. Gleason article - INTERVIEW WITH HANK WILLIAMS

Books

• Jam Session (1957) - collected articles
• The San Francisco Scene (1968) - pieces on Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, and others
• Celebrating The Duke, & Louis, Bessie, Billie, Bird, Carmen, Miles, Dizzy & Other Heroes (1975)