Eric Nisenson (February 12, 1946 – August 15, 2003) was an American author andjazz historian. The son of inventorJules Nisenson, he was born inNew York City and raised inRye, New York. He attendedNew York University (NYU), where he studied English, and then moved toSan Francisco where he worked on the staffs of alternative publications includingThe Berkeley Barb andHeliotrope.

Nisenson became a lifelong lover of jazz at the age of 15, when he listened totrumpeterMiles Davis's 1959 albumKind of Blue. In the early 1970s, after he had moved back to New York, Nisenson was introduced to Davis. Although, as Nisenson recounts, he was "terrified" of Davis the first time he met him,[1] the two men became friends, and Davis asked Nisenson to write his official biography. By the timeRound About Midnight: A Portrait of Miles Davis was published in 1982, however, the friendship had ended (Davis was not easy to get along with, though Nisenson wrote in a second revision of the biography, that Miles had deserted him asCicely Tyson was determined for Miles to start a new lifestyle and cut his ties with the past).

In 1993, Nisenson published a biography ofsaxophonistJohn Coltrane entitledAscension: John Coltrane and his Quest, but by that time he had been diagnosed with a form ofleukemia and was struggling with the disease and complications arising from it. The illness largely kept Nisenson confined to his house, but as he fought it he focused increasingly on his work. In 1997, he publishedBlue: The Murder of Jazz, a critical work arguing that conservative musicians and record labels are stifling the innovation that makes jazz distinctive. The year 2000 saw two new works from Nisenson,The Making of Kind of Blue, which focuses on the inspiration behind the landmark album; and a biography of saxophonistSonny Rollins calledOpen Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation.

Nisenson died on August 15, 2003, ofkidney failure related to hisleukemia. At the time of his death, he was working on a biography ofpianistDave Brubeck and a study ofBrazilian music and culture.

• Round About Midnight: A Portrait of Miles Davis
• Ascension: John Coltrane and his Quest
• Blue: The Murder of Jazz
• The Making of Kind of Blue
• Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation

• 1946 births
• 2003 deaths
• Deaths from leukemia
• American music journalists
• New York University alumni
• Jazz writers
• People from Rye, New York
• 20th-century American biographers
• Historians from New York (state)