Chip Deffaa

Chip Deffaa (born 1951)^[1] is an author, jazz historian, playwright, songwriter and director. For 18 years, he wrote for the New York Post, covering jazz, cabaret, and theater. He has contributed to Jazz Times, The Mississippi Rag, Down Beat, Cabaret Scenes, Entertainment Weekly.

Deffaa has written eight books, including Swing Legacy (IBN=0-8108-2282-2), Voices of the Jazz Age (ISBN=0-252-01681-5), In the Mainstream (ISBN=0-8108-2558-9), Traditionalists and Revivalists in Jazz (ISBN=0-8108-2704-2), Jazz Veterans (ISBN=1-879384-28-0), F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Princeton Years (ed.) (ISBN=1-879384-29-9),Blue Rhythms (ISBN=0-306-80919-2), and (with David Cassidy) C'Mon Get Happy (ISBN=0-446-39531-5). He has contributed chapters to the books Harlem Speaks (ISBN-13= 978-1-4022-0436-4, ISBN-10=1-4022-0436-1) and Roaring at One Hundred (ISBN=0-914703-01-3). He has written and directed in New York such plays as George M. Cohan: In his Own Words (published by Samuel French Inc., ISBN=0-573-63039-9), Yankee Doodle Boy (Drama Source), The George M. Cohan Revue (Baker's Plays, ISBN=978-0-87440-080-9), George M. Cohan & Co. (Eldridge Plays), The Seven Little Foys, The Johnny Mercer Jamboree, and Theater Boys.

George M. Cohan Tonight!, which Deffaa wrote and directed off-Broadway in New York at the Irish Repertory Theatre, was called "brash, cocky, energetic and endlessly euphoric" by the New York Times.^[2] The cast album was released in 2006 by Sh-K-Boom / Ghostlight Records. George M. Cohan Tonight! opened September 21, 2010 at the New Players Theater on the West End in London. "A great US entertainer lives again..." wrote The Times (September 28, 2010).

Deffaa's most recent plays include The Family that Sings Together... (published by Drama Source), Song-and-Dance Kids, and One Night with Fanny Brice. (The cast album of One Night with Fanny Brice was released in September 2010 by Original Cast Records.) After several regional productions, One Night With Fanny Brice was produced Off-Broadway in New York at St. Luke's Theatre, 308 W. 46th Street; previews began on March 16, 2011, with an official opening night set for April 3, 2011. All of Deffaa's plays are available for licensing. He is represented by the Fifi Oscard Agency in New York.

Deffaa also lectures on theater and jazz. His 2007 lectures in Korea, timed to coincide with the opening of one of his plays there, were sponsored by the US State Department.

Deffaa has written liner notes for many CDs, including those of such artists as Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, Ray Brown, Diane Schuur, Ruth Brown, Tito Puente, Dick Hyman, Randy Sandke, Scott Hamilton, and the Count Basie Orchestra. Deffaa has won an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award, a New Jersey Press Association Award, and an IRNE Award (Independent Reviewers of New England). Deffaa is a member of the Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers, the Dramatists Guild, ASCAP, NARAS, the Jazz Journalists Association, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, the Drama Desk, and the American Theatre Critics Association. Deffaa is a trustee of the Princeton Tiger magazine.

References

1. ^ Who's Who in the World. Marquis. Marquis Who's Who.
2. ^ Hunka, George (2006-03-14). "Recapturing an Old Fountain of Euphoria". The New York Times (New York: The New York Times). http://theater.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/theater/reviews/14toni.html?scp=1&sq=george%20m.%20cohan%20tonight&st=cse. Retrieved 2010-11-30. 

External links

• www.GeorgeMCohan.org
• Allmusic: Chip Deffaa Biography

Persondata
Name	Deffaa, Chip
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1951
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death