Zan Stewart

Zan Stewart (born March 29, 1944) is an American jazz writer, musician and former disc jockey.

Born in Los Angeles, California, Stewart is the son of Cassius Lynford Stewart (1907–1997) and Elizabeth LeGrange Wilbur Stewart (1904–1992). In the 1930s and 1940s, his father was as an accountant for such Los Angeles area film studios as Universal, Eagle Lion and RKO, working on films that included two directed by Howard Hawks: The Thing (From Another World) and The Big Sky. Later, he was an auditor for Ventura County, California, treasurer of Ojai Festivals, Ltd., and producer of jazz concerts for the Festivals, and, with Gene Lees and Fred Hall, of several seasons of Jazz At Ojai, for which he designed the event's logo. A musician, he played piano—he studied with the fine pianist Theo Saunders—and guitar, and was also a cartoonist, whose works appeared in the Ojai, California-based Ojai Valley Voice. Stewart's mother, whose professional name was Elizabeth Wilbur, was an actress from the late 1920s until the 1940s, appearing on stage, in two films -- "Bonnie Scotland" (1934) and "Robin Hood of El Dorado" (1936) -- and on radio, including roles on Cecil B. DeMille's "Lux Radio Theater." Stewart's maternal grandmother was the playwright Helen Hannah Wilbur (1878–1937), who wrote numerous plays under the name Elene Wilbur and also contributed scripts for the Christian Science radio program, "Courage Corner."

Stewart became fascinated with jazz as a teenager growing up in Ojai, California, where he moved with his parents in 1955, and was introduced to jazz journalism through extensive reading of Down Beat magazine, to which he would later contribute, beginning in the 1980s. He first contributed jazz writing to Paul Afeldt's Ventura, California-based Jazz Review while still in high school, then began his professional career in 1975 with a bi-weekly column for the Santa Barbara (Ca.) News and Review. (He graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara with a BA in Film Studies in 1974.) After moving to Los Angeles in 1977, he started writing for the L.A. Weekly in 1979, which brought him to the attention of Los Angeles Times jazz critic Leonard Feather, who brought him on the paper in 1980, where he was later mentored by arts editor Fred Crafts. Stewart wrote features for the L.A. Times, including a weekly "Jazz Notes" column, as well as reviews of performances and recordings, jazz listings, and more. His colleagues included jazz writer Don Heckman and noted food writers Colman Andrews, a friend since adolescence in Ojai, and Ruth Reichl.

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