Gitler grew up listening to swing bands in the late 1930s and 1940s, before discovering the new music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. In the early 1950s, he worked as a producer for many recording sessions of Prestige Records. He is credited with coining the term "sheets of sound" in the late 1950s, to describe the playing of John Coltrane.

Gitler was the New York editor of Down Beat magazine, during the 1960s, and has written for Metronome Magazine, JazzTimes, Jazz Improv, Modern Drummer, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Village Voice, Vibe, Playboy, World Monitor, and New York Magazine. Internationally he has contributed to the magazines Swing Journal (Japan), Musica Jazz (Italy) and Jazz Magazine (France). He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974.

Gitler was given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the New Jersey Jazz Society (in 2001) and by the Jazz Journalists Association (in 2002).

Gitler's passion for ice hockey has prompted him to write several books on the subject. He also wrote for the New York Rangers as well as the National Hockey League in their former magazine, Goal.