If you’re lamenting celebrated jazz critic Gary Giddins’ (pictured) recent departure from the Village Voice, if his current column in JazzTimes leaves you wanting more, if your copy of his 2000 tome Visions of Jazz has fallen to pieces, then just wait until November, when a large collection of past Giddins crit will be published by Oxford University Press.
Titled Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century, the 606-page collection contains more than 140 of Giddins’ essays, reviews and other articles from the last 14 years. The book includes commentary on contemporary jazz events, today’s top musicians, the best records of the past 14 years and leading figures from jazz’s past. Looking over the Weather Bird‘s table of contents, it appears a balanced mix of pieces on giants like Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman, and newer names like Dave Douglas and Stefon Harris, plus even more recent musicians like Vijay Iyer and the Bad Plus.
The book will first be released in hardcover for $35. You can get your copy of Weather Bird signed by Giddins in mid-November, provided you’re local to either Washington, D.C. or New York City. Here’s info on his scheduled book signings, where he’ll also be discussing the collection.
Tuesday, November 16 at 7 p.m.
at Olsson’s Books & Records
418 7th St., NW
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 638-7610
Thursday November 18, 7:30 p.m.
at Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Astor Place, 4 Astor Place
New York, NY 10003
212-420-1322
Giddins wrote the “Weather Bird” column in the Village Voice for 30 years. His has published eight books and made three documentary films, which have won him the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, two Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Awards the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, a Peabody and a Guggenheim Fellowhsip.
