Rudi Blesh

American jazz critic, born January 21, 1899, Guthrie, Oklahoma, died August 25, 1985, Gilmanton, New Hampshire. Blesh wrote jazz reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Herald Tribune in the 1940s. He also hosted a jazz radio program, This Is Jazz, in 1947. Blesh founded Circle Records (10) in 1946, which recorded New Orleans and Dixieland jazz, and also issued the Library of Congress recordings of Jelly Roll Morton. Author or co-author of "Shining Trumpets (A History of Jazz)," "They All Played Ragtime," and the Buster Keaton biography "Keaton." Nominated for a Grammy Award for liner notes to The Complete Works For Piano.