*1928 US, Brooklyn
Ira Gitler (born December 18, 1928, Brooklyn, New York) is an American jazz historian and journalist. Perhaps best known for The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz written with Leonard Feather—the most recent edition appeared in 1999—he has written hundreds of liner notes for jazz recordings since the early 1950s and is the author of dozens of books about jazz and ice hockey, two of his passions.