Recorded Music
 | Ashley Kahn
Instructor, Recorded Music
Office: 194 Mercer Street, 5th Floor |
Courses
Topics in Recorded Music: Miles Davis
Topics in Recorded Music: Aretha Franklin and Soul Music
Biography
Ashley Kahn is a music journalist, whose writing has produced books, feature articles and a few awards; his voice is often heard going on about some musical passion on “Morning Edition” or “Day to Day.” Recently, he authored "A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album" (Viking/Penguin) and "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece" (Da Capo Press); and directed and produced the documentary "Made in Heaven: The Story of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue" (Sony Music.) Less recently, he served as a music editor at VH1, as the primary editor of "Rolling Stone: The Seventies" (Little, Brown) and – for a ten-year stint – as a tour manager, globe-hopping with a multitude of groups, including Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Debbie Harry & the Jazz Passengers and – he’ll admit – Britney Spears. But also Henry Threadgill, he adds. Kahn continues to spread his bylines as widely as possible: The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, TV Guide, New York Observer, New York Newsday, JazzTimes, MOJO (UK), The Guardian (UK), Jazz (France) and also GQ (in Japan). He subscribes to the credo proposed by Duke Ellington that there are simply two kinds of music: “good” and “not.”
