Gary Giddins
Encyclopedia
Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic, author, and director, best known for his longtime work with The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

. Born in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, and raised on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, Giddins graduated from Grinnell College
Grinnell College
Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, U.S. known for its strong tradition of social activism. It was founded in 1846, when a group of pioneer New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College....

, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

, in 1970. After some freelance work as a music and film critic, in 1974 he started writing his column "Weather Bird" for the Village Voice, which he ended in December 2003.

Giddins has received the National Book Critics Circle Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....

, the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, and the Bell Atlantic Award for Visions of Jazz: The First Century in 1998. His other books include Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

: A Pocketful of Dreams—The Early Years, 1903–1940
, which won the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award and the ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Sound Research; Weatherbird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century; Faces in the Crowd; Natural Selection; and biographies of Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

 and Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

. He has won an unparalleled six ASCAP–Deems Taylor Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

, and a Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...

 in Broadcasting. He is the acting director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Books

  • Riding on a Blue Note (1981)
  • Rhythm-a-ning (1985)
  • Celebrating Bird (1987)
  • Satchmo (1988)
  • Faces in the Crowd (1992)
  • Visions of Jazz: The First Century (1998)
  • Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams (2001)
  • Weather Bird (2004)
  • Natural Selection (2006)
  • Jazz (2009)
  • Warning Shadows: Home Alone with Classic Cinema (2010)

Films

  • 1987 Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker
  • 1990 Masters of American Music: Satchmo - Louis Armstrong aka Satchmo

Quotation

External links

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