Gary Giddins
American jazz critic and author (born 1948)
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Gary Giddins (born 1948) is an American jazz critic and author.[1] He wrote for The Village Voice from 1973;[1] his "Weather Bird" column ended in 2003.[2] In 1986, Gary Giddins and John Lewis created the American Jazz Orchestra which presented concerts using a jazz repertory with musicians such as Tony Bennett.[2]
For five years, Giddins was the executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.[2]
Selected works
Books
- Riding on a Blue Note (1981)
- A Moment's Notice: Portraits of American Jazz Musicians (with Carol Friedman) (1983)
- Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation (1985)
- Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker (1987, rev. 2013)
- Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong (1988, rev. 2001)
- Faces in the Crowd: Musicians, Writers, Actors, and Filmmakers (1992)
- Visions of Jazz: The First Century (1998)
- Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams - The Early Years, 1903-1940 (2001)
- Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of its Second Century (2004)
- Natural Selection: Gary Giddins on Comedy, Film, Music and Books (2006)
- Jazz: The Essentials (with Scott DeVeaux) (2009, rev. 2014)
- Warning Shadows: Home Alone with Classic Cinema (2010)
- Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star - The War Years, 1940-1946 (2018)
Films
- 1987: Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker
- 1990: Masters of American Music: Satchmo - Louis Armstrong aka Satchmo
- 1992: John Hammond: From Bessie Smith to Bruce Springsteen (writer)
- 1999: Contributed to the documentary Barry Harris: The Spirit of Bebop. Giddins (& others) described how Harris developed and maintained an appreciation for Bebop and became a force to engage so many people in a deep love and commitment to music performance.
- 2000: Contributor of interviews throughout the 10-part PBS series Jazz by Ken Burns.
- 2004–2007: The Jazz Master Class Series from NYU: Narrator, interviewer, interviewee; series of seven volumes on Cecil Taylor, Jimmy and Percy Heath, Barry Harris, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Hank Jones, Toots Thielemans
- 2003–present: Consultant, interviews, commentaries, liner notes for various films for The Criterion Collection[3]
- 2014: Bing Crosby Rediscovered – American Masters
Awards
- A 9th, 10th, 17th, and 37th Annual ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award Writers or Editors[4][5][6][7]
- 1982 and 1990 Nominee for and 1986 winner of Grammy for Best Album Notes[8][9]
- Guggenheim Fellowship 1986[10]
- 1987 American Book Award for Celebrating Bird[11]
- 1988 Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Grinnell College[12]
- ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Celebrating Bird [book], 1988.[11]
- 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism for Visions of Jazz: The First Century[13]
- 1999 Jazz Journalists Association Excellence in Print and Book of the Year (for Visions of Jazz) Awards.[14]
- Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award for Visions of Jazz, 1998[15]
- Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award for Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, 2002.[14][failed verification]
- The 2002 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Best Research in Recorded General Popular Music Award Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams: The Early Years, 1903–1940[16]
- 2002 Theatre Library Association Award for excellence in writing on film and broadcasting for Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams: The Early Years, 1903–1940[17]
- 2001 New York Times-selected Notable Book: Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams: The Early Years, 1903–1940[18]
- Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams: The Early Years, 1903–1940 nominated one of Los Angeles Times's Best Books of 2001[19]
- The 2003 Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Writer of the Year and Lifetime Achievement Awards[20]