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Baruch "Barry" Ulanov (April 10, 1918 – April 30, 2000) was an American writer, perhaps best known as a jazz critic.


Background

Barry Ulanov was born in Manhattan, New York City. He received early instruction on the violin from his father Nathan who was
concertmaster The concertmaster (from the German language, German ''Konzertmeister''), first chair (U.S.) or leader (UK) is the principal first violin player in an orchestra (clarinet or oboe in a concert band). After the Conducting, conductor, the concertma ...
for
Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orche ...
's
NBC Symphony Orchestra The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra conceived by David Sarnoff, the president of the Radio Corporation of America, the parent corporation of the National Broadcasting Company especially for the conductor Arturo Toscanini. The NBC ...
. He ceased playing the instrument after a car crash in which he broke both wrists. He studied at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
taking his BA there in 1939. While at Columbia, he joined the Boar's Head Society and wrote about jazz and also attended jazz concerts, including an early performance of "
Strange Fruit "Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol (under his pseudonym Lewis Allan) and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol published in 1937. The song Protest song, protests the Lynch ...
" by
Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made significant contributions to jazz music and pop ...
at the Café Society.


Career

Soon after graduating he edited several magazines and journals on music. He was editor of the journal ''
Metronome A metronome () is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a uniform interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats per minute (BPM). Metronomes may also include synchronized visual motion, such as a swinging pendulum ...
'' from 1943 to 1955 and increased its coverage of modern jazz music as well as promoting contemporary African American musicians. Ulanov was an early advocate of
bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...
and the music of
Charlie Parker Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz Saxophone, saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of beb ...
and
Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...
. In the early 1950s, as part of a ''Metronome'' sponsored event, he ran The New Jazz Society which met at a West 54th Street club where Charlie Parker occupied the weekend residency. The jazz pianist Lennie Tristano wrote the composition "Coolin' Off With Ulanov", a personal testament to the affinity that many jazz musicians had with Ulanov. He organized several concerts of bop stars for WOR radio in 1947. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia in the 1950s. From 1955 to 1958, he wrote for ''
DownBeat ''DownBeat'' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm that it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1 ...
'', and published several biographies of jazz musicians in the 1940s and 1950s. In his autobiography
Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...
referred to Ulanov as the only white critic who ever understood him or Charlie Parker. He taught at
Juilliard The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became the Juilliard School, named aft ...
(1946), Princeton (1950–51), and
Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...
(1951–1988) as well as at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. In 1962 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ulanov converted to
Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
in 1951 and was one of the sponsors at the baptism of the jazz pianist and composer
Mary Lou Williams Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and ...
in 1957. After his conversion, he began to write more on the subjects of
religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
and
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
. He was the president of the Catholic Renascence Society and founder of a St. Thomas More Society; he and his wife, Joan Bel Geddes (daughter of
Norman Bel Geddes Norman Bel Geddes (born Norman Melancton Geddes; April 27, 1893 – May 8, 1958) was an American theatrical and industrial designer, described in 2012 by the New York Times as "a brilliant craftsman and draftsman, a master of style, the 20t ...
), translated many essays and books on Catholicism. He advocated the use of amplified music in church, including
rock music Rock is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of styles from the mid-1960s, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdo ...
. He promoted the idea that the entertainment media should be more Christian in nature, taking to task the movies, music, plays, and particularly comic books (which he called the worst product of the press) in the 1950s. In the last twenty years of his life, Ulanov concentrated on explorations of religion and psychology, and published over 10 books with his second wife, Ann Belford Ulanov, Professor of Psychiatry and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York and psychoanalyst in private practice. Barry Ulanov died of colorectal cancer on April 30, 2000, aged 82. The Annual Barry Ulanov Memorial Lecture Series is held each year at the Union Theological Seminary.Ann Ulanov - Union Theological Seminary
. Faculty Information. Retrieved 5 June 2013.


Teaching style

June Jordan, the poet, author, and activist, was a student of Ulanov's at Barnard College. In an essay that appeared in her book ''Civil Wars'', Jordan described with nostalgic admiration a surprise in-class exam administered by Ulanov. Ulanov told the students to write about anything they wanted without using any form of the verbs ''to be'' or ''to have''. Jordan went on to say how difficult yet worthwhile the exam was.


Partial bibliography

*''Duke Ellington'' (1946) *''The Incredible Crosby'' (1948) *''A History of Jazz in America'' (1952) *''A Handbook of Jazz'' (1957) *''The Making of a Modern Saint: A Biographical Study of Thèrése of Liseux'' *''Death: A Book of Preparation and Consolation'' (1959) *''Sources & Resources: The Literary Traditions of Christian Humanism'' (1960) *''The Bridge: A Judeo-Christian Journal'' (?) with Msgr. John Oesterreicher *''The Way of Saint Alphonsus of Liguori'' (1960) *''Makers of the Modern Theater'' (1961) *''Seeds of Hope in the Modern World'' 1962) *''Contemporary Catholic Thought'' (1963) *''The Two World of American Art: The Private and the Popular'' (1965) *''Modern Culture and the Arts'' (1972) (with James B. Hall) *''The Prayers of St. Augustine'' (1983) *''Creative Dissent: Psychoanalysis in Evolution'' (1983) (with Alan Roland, Claude Barbre) *''Men and Women: Sexual Ethics in Turbulent Times'' (1989) *''Jung and the Outside World'' (1992) *''On Death: Wisdom and Consolation from the World's Great Writers'' (1996) ''with Joan Bel Geddes'' *''George Bernanos'' translation of novel (?) ''with Ann Belford Ulanov'' *''Primary Speech: A Psychology of Prayer'' (1975) *''Cinderella and Her Sisters: The Envied and the Envying'' (1978) *''Religion and the Unconscious'' (1985) *''The Witch and the Clown: Two Archetypes of Human Sexuality'' (1987) *''The Healing Imagination: The Meeting of Psyche and Soul'' (1991) *''Transforming Sexuality: The Archetypal World of Anima and Animus'' (1994) ''other'' *''Groovin' High by Barry Ulanov & His Metronome All-Stars (Music Download)''


References


External links


A History Of Jazz In America
at the Internet Archive. Third Edition 1955.
Finding aid to Barry Ulanov papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ulanov, Barry 1918 births 2000 deaths Converts to Roman Catholicism American music critics 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers Columbia College (New York) alumni