Gary Giddins

Giddins speaking at an American Library Association conference in Chicago, 2009.

Gary Giddins (born March 21, 1948) is an American jazz and film critic, author, and director, best known for his longtime work with The Village Voice. Born in Brooklyn, and raised on Long Island, Giddins graduated from Grinnell College, Iowa, 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. 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.^[1]

Giddins has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, 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: 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 and Charlie Parker. He has won six ASCAP–Deems Taylor Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Peabody Award in Broadcasting.^[2] He is the Executive Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.^[1]

Selected works

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
• 2000 Contributor of interviews throughout the 10 part PBS series, Jazz by Ken Burns.
• 2014 Bing Crosby Rediscovered – American Masters

Awards and Honors

• ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism, 1976.
• ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism, 1977.
• Grammy Nominee for album notes, Ellington 1941, 1982.
• ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism, 1984.
• Guggenheim Fellowship, 1986.
• Grammy Winner for album notes, Sinatra: The Voice, 1987.
• American Book Award for Celebrating Bird, 1987.
• AFI Video Conference Award for Celebrating Bird [film], 1988.
• Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, Grinnell College, 1988.
• VIDEO Magazine Award for Celebrating Bird [film], 1988.
• ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Celebrating Bird [book], 1988.
• Video Review ViRa Award for Satchmo [film], 1990
• Jazz Times Readers Poll Winner, Celebrating Bird [film], 1990
• Jazz Times Critics Poll Winner, Satchmo [film], 1990
• Grammy Nominee for album notes, Art Pepper on Galaxy, 1990.
• George Foster Peabody Award, John Hammond, 1991.
• ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Faces in the Crowd, 1992.
• ASCAP Gerald Marks Award, 1997.
• AAN (Assoc. Alternative Newsweeklies): Music Criticism, First Place, 1999.
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Visions of Jazz, 1999.
• Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award for Visions of Jazz, 1999.
• Jazz Journalists Association Award for Visions of Jazz, 1999.
• Jazz Journalists Association Award, Jazz Writer of the Year, 1999.
• Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award for Bing Crosby, 2002.
• Theater Library Association Award for Bing Crosby, 2002.
• ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Research for Bing Crosby, 2002.
• Jazz Journalists Association Award, Lifetime Achievement, 2003.
• AAN (Assoc. Alternative Newsweeklies): Music Criticism, Second Place, 2004.
• ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism, 2004.

References

External links

• Gary Giddins at the Internet Movie Database
• GaryGiddins.com (official website)