Born in 1933 in Omaha, Nebraska, Jim Newman has been deeply involved in the worlds of jazz and contemporary art for over 35 years, with numerous credits in his various roles of musician, jazz presenter, contemporary art curator and collector, and film and television producer.

Discovering bebop as a teenager and trained as a saxophonist, Newman attended Stanford University and Oberlin College, where he received his Bachelor's degree in Music in 1955. While at Oberlin he started a jazz club and was also a founding member, with Walter Hopps and Craig Kauffman, of Concerthall Workshop. In addition to his activities as a musician, Newman has had extensive experience as a jazz presenter, having staged numerous concerts at Oberlin and in Los Angeles, presenting such artists as Dave Brubeck, Teddy Charles, Count Basie, Chet Baker, Charles Mingus, Terry Gibbs, and Gerry Mulligan.

Jim Newman co-founded Syndell Studio in Los Angeles in 1955, with Ben and Betty Bartosh, Walter Hopps and Craig Kauffman. In that same year they presented "Action I," the first major survey of California abstract expressionist painting, at the Santa Monica Pier merry-go-round. In 1956 he moved to San Francisco where he co-founded the Dilexi Gallery with Robert Alexander in 1958 and directed its operations until 1970. During that period he introduced the work of Jeremy Anderson, John Chamberlain, Jay de Feo, Roy De Forest, Tony deLap, Alfred Jensen, Craig Kauffman, Leslie Kerr, Alvin Light, Phil Makanna, Fred Martin, Deborah Remington, Hassel Smith, H.C. Westermann, Franklin Williams, and others to a wider public.

In his capacity as a film and television producer, Newman worked with KQED-TV on production of the Dilexi Series, featuring twelve original TV programs by artists including Terry Riley, Arlo Acton, Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Nelson, Frank Zappa, Andy Warhol, the Living Theater, Philip Makanna, Robert Frank, Edwin Schlossberg, Walter De Maria, and Kenneth Dewey. From 1972 to 1974 he produced two feature films, Phil Makanna's Shoot the Whale and Space Is the Place, featuring jazz genius Sun Ra. In 1976 he produced a video documentary on Philippine psychic surgery, Miracles and Metaphors.

In 1978 Newman resumed active music making, studying flute performance. Since 1982 he has held the baritone saxophone chair with the Junius Courtney band. With filmmaker William Farley he produced a video documentary, In Between the Notes, on the life and career of master Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, working closely with Pran Nath's disciples Terry Riley, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. In 1988 he opened a music production and recording studio in San Francisco.

In 1993 Newman began a collaboration with conceptual artist Lowell Darling on a project called Hollywood Archaeology. They began making Cibachrome prints of discarded movie film found by Darling in the streets and dumpsters of Hollywood in the early '70s. More recently the project has expanded and found a home on the World Wide Web, under the sponsorship of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Newman is responsible for the design and formatting of this Other Minds website. He has served as President of Other Minds (formerly the California College of Performing Arts) since 1992. Newman can be reached by email at jnew@speakeasy.net