Author, editor, radio-show host, classicist, educator, fervent proponent of women in jazz, founding member of the Jazz Journalists Association and its historian, W. Royal Stokes died on May 1, 2021 at age 90.
Royal’s son Sutton sent word of his demise; his other survivors include his son Neale, wife Erika and grandchildren. A native of Washington, D.C. Royal had moved to Elkins, West Virginia. In 2014 he was honored with the JJA’s Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism Award.
Royal’s books include The Jazz Scene: An Informal History from New Orleans to 1990 (Oxford University Press), Swing Era New York: The Jazz Photographs of Charles Peterson (Temple University Press), Living the Jazz Life: Conversations with Forty Musicians About Their Careers in Jazz (OUP), Growing Up with Jazz: 24 Musicians Talk about Their Lives and Careers (OUP), and The Essential W. Royal Stokes Jazz, Blues and Beyond Reader (independently published in 2020). He also wrote a fictional triology
under the collective title Backwards Over.
As detailed in Chris Richards’ February 25, 2021 article “W. Royal Stokes has lived a jazz life as unpredictable as the music”, his devotion to jazz began with his older brother’s record collection and was confirmed when at age 18 he heard Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars. When he returned to D.C. after having served in the armed forces, having received a Ph. D. from Yale, several years in academia and a protracted road trip with his wife-to-be, Royal had a radio show on WGTB. He first published jazz commentary in the Washington Post in 1978, and that year attended the first Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival.
“I could see how women were being treated then, and they’re still being treated that way today,” Richards quotes Stokes saying. “They’re still seldom [booked] at festivals, they still have fewer jobs in the clubs and concert halls, and this remains very disturbing.” In an attempt to right the balance, Royal wrote many profiles and reviews of women musicians.
From 1992 to 2001 Royal edited Jazz Notes, the newsletter of the JJA and forerunner of JJANews. In 2013 he wrote “The Jazz Journalists Association: A 25-Year Retrospective” (since updated to “30-Year Retrospective”). The JJA continues in its mission inspired by the example, experience and legacy of W. Royal Stokes.
