Francis Davis

Francis Davis ( born August 30, 1946 in Philadelphia ) is an American author and journalist. He became known as a jazz critic of The Village Voice and The Atlantic Monthly.

Life and work

Davis studied from 1964 to 1969 at Temple University. In the early 1980s he began to operate as a jazz critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He also wrote articles on topics ranging from Seinfeld to Johnny Cash, who appeared inter alia in The Atlantic Monthly, also about Frank Sinatra and the composer Anthony Davis. He led for the New York magazine, The Village Voice, a series of interviews, including with Betty Carter, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, Sun Ra and with the former film critic of the New Yorker, Pauline Kael, from which the book Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael was born.

Davis was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1992, 1993, a Pew Fellowship. Several times he was honored with the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award; In 1998 he was (along with Martin Williams and Dick Katz) nominated for the Grammy Award for his liner notes to the album Jazz Piano of the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings. In 2007 he received the award for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism ( Jazz Journalism Lifetime Achievement ) of the Jazz Journalists Association. At the 2009 Grammy Awards, he was for his essay in the accompanying text of the new edition of Kind of Blue: 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition awarded. He also worked for radio and film, he also taught courses on Jazz and Blues at the University of Pennsylvania. Davis lives in Philadelphia and is married to Terry Gross, which is active as a producer and presenter of the NPR program Fresh Air.

Publications

  • In the Moment: Jazz in the 1980s (Oxford University Press, 1986 )
  • Outcats: Jazz Composers, Instrumentalists, and Singers ( Oxford University Press, 1990)
  • The History of the Blues ( Hyperion, 1995)
  • Like Young ( Da Capo, 2001)
  • Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael ( Da Capo, 2002)
  • Jazz and Its Discontents: A Francis Davis Reader ( Da Capo, 2004)
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