Charles Frederic Ramsey, Jr. (January 29, 1915, Pittsburgh - March 18, 1995, Paterson, New Jersey

Paterson, New Jersey

Paterson is a city serving as the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 146,199, rendering it New Jersey's third largest city and one of the largest cities in the New York City Metropolitan Area, despite a decrease of 3,023...

) was an American writer on jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 and record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

.

Ramsey took his BA at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in 1936, then took jobs at Harcourt Brace (1936–39), the United States Department of Agriculture

United States Department of Agriculture

The United States Department of Agriculture is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food...

 (1941–42), and Voice of America

Voice of America

Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...

 (1942). With Charles Edward Smith, Ramsey wrote Jazzmen (1939), an early landmark of jazz scholarship particularly noted for its treatment of the life of King Oliver. After receiving Guggenheim fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

s, he visited the American South in the middle of the 1950s to make field recording

Field recording

Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside of a recording studio. The recording is typically recorded in the same channel format as the desired result, for instance, stereo recording equipment will yield a stereo product...

s and do interviews with rural musicians, some of which were used in releases by Folkways Records

Folkways Records

Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...

 and in a 1957 documentary, Music of the South. He also curated an anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 of early jazz recordings for Folkways, entitled simply Jazz. Ramsey worked with the Institute of Jazz Studies

Institute of Jazz Studies

The Institute of Jazz Studies is the largest and most comprehensive library and archive of jazz and jazz-related materials in the world, located at the Newark campus of Rutgers University.-History:...

 at Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

 from 1970. He researched Buddy Bolden

Buddy Bolden

Charles "Buddy" Bolden was an African American cornetist and is regarded by contemporaries as a key figure in the development of a New Orleans style of rag-time music which later came to be known as jazz.- Life :...

's life with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

National Endowment for the Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...

 in 1974-75 and continued with a Ford Foundation

Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....

 grant in 1975-76. He presented early jazz interviews on National Public Radio in 1987.

Books

• Jazzmen: The Story of Hot Jazz Told in the Lives of the Men Who Created It (1939)
• The Jazz Record Book (1942)
• Chicago Documentary: Portrait of a Jazz Era (1944)
• A Guide to Longplay Jazz Records (1954)
• Been Here and Gone (1960)
• Where the Music Started: A Photographic Essay (1970)