Biography | Other Credits | Awards
the most impressive journalist ever to have written about music." Born in
Brooklyn, New York, Giddins graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa, and the
following year began working as a freelance writer. In 1973, he joined the
Village Voice, and a year later introduced his column "Weather Bird," which
he ended in December 2003, closing a 30-year run during which he received
international recognition and won many prizes, including an unparalleled six
ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for Excellence in Music Criticism.
.....Giddins' writings on music, books, and movies have appeared in The New
York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, The Atlantic, Grand Street, The Nation,
and many other publications. He presently writes columns about music for Jazz
Times and about film for the New York Sun. His first book, Riding on a Blue Note,
appeared in 1981, and was followed by Rhythm-a-Ning, Faces in the Crowd, and
critical biographies of Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong that he adapted
into documen-tary films for PBS; he won a Peabody award for writing the PBS
documentary, John Hammond: From Bessie Smith to Bruce Springsteen. He has been
nominated three times for Grammy Awards, and won in 1987 for his liner notes to
Sinatra: The Voice.
.....In 1986, Giddins and the late pianist-composer John Lewis introduced the
American Jazz Orchestra, which presented jazz repertory concerts for the next
seven years—more than 35 concerts involving Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Tony
Bennett, Bobby Short, Muhal Richard Abrams, Gerry Mulligan, Henry Threadgill,
Jimmy Heath, David Murray, and many others. He also produced four concerts for
Festival Productions at the JVC Jazz Festival, working with Roy Eldridge, Ella
Fitzgerald, Gil Evans, Lee Konitz, Joe Williams, Carmen McRae, Johnny Hartman,
and, in his New York debut, Bobby Mcferrin.
