Phil Schaap 1951-2021 | In Memoriam

Jazz historian, radio host, producer, and teacher Phil Schaap (faculty 2006-21) died September 7 after a four-year battle with cancer. He was 71 and is survived by his partner, Susan Shaffer.

The son of pioneering jazz scholar Walter Schaap and his wife, Marjorie, who was a classically trained pianist and a librarian, Philip Van Noorden Schaap was born April 8, 1951, and grew up in Hollis, Queens. He came by his love of jazz naturally and his parents nurtured it, giving him access to a who’s who of the jazz world, and he absorbed their stories and lore. As a freshman at Columbia, he found his way to the radio station, WKCR, and continued to host shows there and elsewhere for 50 years.

As a jazz scholar, Schaap won three Grammys for liner notes—for sets of Charlie Parker (about whom he broadcast daily for years), Billie Holiday, and Miles Davis/Gil Evans; he also won producing Grammys for the Holiday and Davis/Evans albums as well as for a Louis Armstrong collection. He joined the Juilliard Jazz faculty in 2006 to teach the graduate jazz history class. He also led Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Swing University and taught at, among others, Columbia, Princeton, and Manhattan School of Music. “Phil inspired countless Juilliard Jazz students to want to know more about the people, the recordings, and the music,” Aaron Flagg (BM ’92, MM ’93, trumpet), the chair and associate director of Juilliard Jazz, wrote in an email to the community announcing Schaap’s death. “He raised the bar for what jazz education should demand of serious students of jazz and give to all lovers of this music.”

Earlier this year, when Schaap was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, Christian McBride (’90, double bass) hosted a segment of the NPR program Jazz Night in America about him. On the program, Wynton Marsalis (’81, trumpet), the director of Juilliard Jazz, talked about his longtime friend and collaborator’s “deep and absolute love of jazz” and “what he’s willing to do about” that love for the music.

Also on the NPR tribute, a young Schaap protégé spoke. Matthew Rivera had met Schaap while a Columbia undergrad working at the radio station and before long was auditing his Juilliard jazz history class and learning from him generally. Rivera asked Schaap on the show why he spent so much time sharing his knowledge. Schaap replied, “There’s nobody more important than the young—you guys are going to be carrying the ball.” He added that he now understood something from his childhood, “which is why were all these people were so nice to me and nurturing [of] my jazz,” saying, “they had put this great stuff in a bag and said, ‘Kid, we have this great stuff, would you hold it for us?’ And then they split. And now I want to do that to you. ‘I’ve got this great stuff, man. Could you hold this for me for a while, and then I’m out the door’.”

Readers are invited to share their memories of Schaap at [email protected].

Information about a memorial service will be forthcoming.