Christiern Gunnar Albertson (October 18, 1931 – April 24, 2019) was a New York City-based jazz journalist, writer and record producer. Early life Albertson was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, on October 18, 1931, but his father left the family before he was a year old. Yvonne, his mother, married three more times. He was educated in Iceland, Denmark and England before studying commercial art in Copenhagen. In 1947, while living in Copenhagen, Albertson listened by chance to a Bessie Smith recording on radio; it led to an abiding interest in jazz and blues music. "We found magic in such names as Kid Ory, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey," he wrote on his Stomp Off blog in 2010. On his home tape machine, Albertson recorded visiting British New Orleans revivalists Ken Colyer, Chris Barber and Lonnie Donegan in 1953. These recordings were subsequently released on the Danish Storyville Records and British Tempo Records labels. Career In 1957, after two years as a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio at Keflavík Air Base, in Iceland, Albertson migrated to the United States, initially working for radio stations in Philadelphia. At WCAU (a CBS affiliate) and WHAT-FM, a 24-hour jazz station, he conducted interviews, including one with Lester Young, one of only two extant with the tenor saxophonist. He was naturalised as an American citizen in 1963. In 1960–61, Albertson was employed by Riverside Records' Bill Grauer as a producer. In this capacity, he arranged and recorded the last sessions of blues singer Ida Cox (whom he brought out of retirement) and boogie-woogie pianist Meade Lux Lewis, and supervised the label's 'Living Legends' series of location recordings. The initial albums in this series were made in New Orleans and featured such early jazz musicians as pianist Sweet Emma Barrett, clarinetist Louis Cottrell, Jr., trumpeters Percy Humphrey and Kid Thomas, blues duo Billie and De de Pierce, and trombonist Jim Robinson. He continued the series in Chicago, with performances by Lil Armstrong, Alberta Hunter, Little Brother Montgomery, and Earl Hines. Albertson subsequently worked as producer for Prestige Records, supervising sessions by, among others, guitarist/singer Lonnie Johnson, whom he had pulled from obscurity while working in Philadelphia. He also founded his own production company, supervising sessions with Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge, Bud Freeman, Ray Bryant, and Elmer Snowden. In the mid-1960s, Albertson worked at NYC radio station WNEW, leaving there for Pacifica