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Barry Ulanov (April 10, 1918 — April 30, 2000) was an American writer.

Ulanov's father was Nathan Ulanov, concertmaster in Arturo Toscanini's NBC Philharmonic. His father taught him violin, but after a car crash in which he broke both wrists, he ceased studying the instrument. He studied at Columbia University, taking his BA there in 1939, and wrote about jazz as a student. Soon after graduating he edited several magazines and journals on music. He edited the journal Metronome from 1943 to 1955, and shifted its focus from Western art music to cover more jazz music, especially black musicians, who had heretofore received little notice in the journal.

Ulanov was an early advocate of bebop, especially Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Lennie Tristano (who wrote a composition, Coolin' Off With Ulanov). He organized several concerts of bop stars for WOR radio in 1947. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia in the 1950s. From 1955-58 he wrote for Down Beat, and published several biographies of jazz musicians in the 1940s and 1950s. In his autobiography Miles Davis referred to Ulanov as the only white critic who ever understood him or Charlie Parker. He taught at Juilliard (1946), Princeton (1950-51), and Barnard College (1951-1988) as well as at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. In 1962 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Ulanov converted to Catholicism in 1951, and began to write more on the subjects of religion and psychology from the 1960s. He was the president of the Catholic Renascence Society and founder of the St. Thomas More Society; he and his wife, Joan, translated many essays and books on Catholicism. He served on the council for Vatican II, advocating for use of the vernacular in the Mass. He advocated the use of amplified music in church, including rock music.

In the last twenty years of his life, Ulanov concentrated on explorations of religion and psychology, and published over 10 books with his second wife Ann Belford Ulanov, Professor of Psychiatry and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York and psychoanalyst in private practice. The Annual Barry Ulanov Memorial Lecture Series is held each year at Union.

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