Email Author Gary Giddins

2003 Stories by Gary Giddins

• Flee as a Bird

  published December 16, 2003

  As Groucho Marx used to sing, "Hello, I must be going." It's time to move on when you begin to calculate a job's duration the way children... More >>

• So Goodbye Already, but Why d'You Call it Weatherbird Anyway?

  published December 16, 2003

  At first I thought the column would co-exist, unnamed, with other writings in Music. But, of course, it had to have its own heading; I objected to... More >>

• Roll Credits

  published December 16, 2003

  If newspaper essays came with movie-style credits, this one might read: Village Voice Media Presents a Gary Giddins Column; Written and Directed... More >>

• Midlife Bloom

  published November 18, 2003

  Of the 70-plus tunes attributed to Thelonious Monk, the ballads occupy a singular plateau, none more so than "Reflections," which he introduced at... More >>

• Silvery Guitarist Writes Engrossing Tunes and Plays Better Solos

  published November 18, 2003

  The guitarist Liberty Ellman was born in London and raised in a Greene Street loft until schooling took him to California. There he hooked up with... More >>

• All Duke's Chillun Got Melody

  published October 14, 2003

  At long last, Gerry Mulligan's five Concert Jazz Band albums, recorded for Verve between 1960 and 1962, have been collected, though not by Verve.... More >>

• Vanished Hard-Bop Trumpeter Resurfaces With Many Friends

  published October 14, 2003

  Charles Tolliver's big-band gig at Jazz Stan-dard should signal the resumption of a career that peaked in the 1970s. A trumpet player and composer... More >>

• Overview and Meditation

  published September 16, 2003

  Nearly four years ago, Lester Bowie blew his last blat and took with him a sensibility that is as much missed as his trumpet playing. With no... More >>

• Last Swingman

  published September 16, 2003

  Gerald Wilson, who turned 85 on September 4, is the only major figure of the Swing Era still working. He joined Jimmie Lunceford on trumpet in... More >>

• King of Jazz Benny Is Dead, Long Live King of Jazz Sonny

  published August 19, 2003

  If jazz must have a king, the present ruler is Sonny Rollins. In case anyone doubted his eminence, the rainy season abated for his August 9... More >>

• Benny Carter, 1907-2003

  published August 19, 2003

  Ten years ago, a woman from the Kennedy Center Honors called to pick my brain. The committee, she said, had decided that a jazz artist should be... More >>

• Ornette and Others

  published July 8, 2003

  And it must follow, as the night the day, that whenever JVC is as false to its calling as it was last summer, it will direct its next installment... More >>

• Give the Drummers Some

  published June 24, 2003

  At 78, Roy Haynes is only a year younger than Max Roach, but jazz history pigeonholes them as first- and second-generation bebop drummers. Each... More >>

• Deep Easy Listening

  published June 10, 2003

  Call it a taste for opposites, but in taking note of the nearly simultaneous appearances by Jim Hall at the Village Vanguard and Cyrus Chestnut at... More >>

• Swashbuckler

  published June 3, 2003

  Conversation with a clerk at a megastore, May 2003: "Do you carry a DVD of Erroll Garner?" "Oh, I know that, it's like, um, adventures of... More >>

• Savooooy Be Gooood

  published May 27, 2003

  Bill Milkowski's entertaining encyclopedia of jive, Swing It!, attempts various explanations of the word, but when push comes to shove... More >>

• Mr. Ellington, Meet Mr. Matisse

  published May 13, 2003

  The logroll is a two-step worth avoiding. It's OK to lead, but to follow is to invite public ridicule. As it is thus highly moral not to return... More >>

• Jazz

  published May 13, 2003

  'BAM RHYTHM & BLUES FESTIVAL' MetroTech Commons at MetroTech Center, corner of Flatbush and Myrtle avenues, 718-636-4111, More >>

• The Academy's Pulitzer

  published April 29, 2003

  On April 9, the Times ran a surprising story by Anne Midgette, "Dissonant Thoughts on the Music Pulitzers," in which John Adams, who had... More >>

• Satchuated

  published April 15, 2003

  Years ago, watching a clip of bungee jumpers, I thought, It's just like writing a biography—the long drop into the abyss, then the sudden... More >>

• Mais Oui, Louis

  published March 18, 2003

  A certain kind of melody is embedded deep in the DNA of silent movies. It's a melancholy diatonic waltz, the love child of "After the Ball" and... More >>

• Chances Are

  published March 4, 2003

  The brilliant 75-year-old French pianist Martial Solal can't quite make an American resurgence because he never really made a dent here, except... More >>

• Trio Savvy

  published March 4, 2003

  A few weeks ago, traveling from the completely sold-out Cassandra Wilson gig at the Jazz Standard to the completely sold-out Bad Plus gig at the... More >>

• Aquí Se Habla Español

  published February 18, 2003

  No career in jazz during the past 30 years has proven more consistently unpredictable and rewarding than that of David Murray. When he first... More >>

• Out of the Territories

  published January 21, 2003

  Steven Bernstein has been so much a part of the downtown cultural exchange, through which the usual suspects are transmitted from one band to... More >>