Ira Gitler is a jazz historian (born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York). He is known as the author of hundreds of liner notes to Jazz recordings since the early 1950s. Ira Gitler was the editor of Down Beat Magazine during the 1960's. He wrote for Metronome, Jazz Times, and Modern Drummer. He was also published in the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He helped Leonard Feather write the Encyclopedia of Jazz.

Interest in jazz in Soviet Union arose a long time ago. Not at all times it could be listened to and performed unpunished. Some of the Soviet musicians, committed to jazz, immigrated to the USA. In this exclusive interview to Valentin Morozov (Yekaterinburg, Russia) Ira Gitler expressed his opinion about Russian musicians he met in New York City in 1990s.