John Gilmore

John Gilmore was born in Montreal, trained as a journalist in the UK, and worked as a newsroom editor at The Montreal Gazette, The Canadian Press, and Radio Canada International. His early work as a writer was in journalism and non-fiction. He is the author of two ground-breaking books on the history of jazz in Montreal: Swinging in Paradise: The Story of Jazz in Montreal [in French translation: Une histoire du jazz à Montréal] and Who’s Who of Jazz in Montreal: Ragtime to 1970. His research materials for the books became the founding collection in Concordia University’s research archive of Quebec jazz and nightlife. John also writes and translates fiction. His books include a poetic novel Head of a Man, a hybrid novel The Broken Notebooks, and a translation of Quebec film-maker Bernard Émond’s novel 20h17, rue Darling. John has also worked as a scholarly editor, a music programmer for CBC Radio, and an English teacher. In 2013, while based in Berlin, he became a visiting researcher at the COHDS and began a multi-year independent oral history research project on the social history of jazz and free improvised music in Montreal from the late 1960s on, picking up where his earlier books left off. Moving back to Montreal, John became a community affiliate. His oral history book, Mon pays, c’est la musique : L’amorce de l’improvisation libre au Québec, was published in 2025. His interviews are archived in Fonds John Gilmore, Concordia University Library Special Collections and Archives.