Martin Williams (writer)

Martin Tudor Hans Field Williams ( * 1924 in Richmond, Virginia, † 13 April 1992 in Alexandria, Virginia) was an American jazz critic and cultural journalist.

Life and work

Williams attended St. Christopher Episcopal Preparatory School. After his military service during the Second World War, inter alia, in Iwo Jima, he first studied law, then literature at the University of Virginia (BA 1948), at the University of Pennsylvania ( MA 1950) and at Columbia University.

Williams was in the 1950s one of the most respected American jazz critic, among other things, for " The Saturday Review ," the New York Times, Harper 's Magazine, Downbeat wrote and, for "The Jazz Review ", which he founded in November 1958 with Nat Hentoff and regularly brought Posts by jazz musicians themselves, as by Gunther Schuller Dick Katz and Cecil Taylor. In 1970 he published his essay The Jazz tradition. From 1971 to 1981 he headed the jazz and "American Culture Program" at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, where he organized in 1973 the comprehensive " Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz" published (for which he wrote the comments), concerts and lectures and the Archives arranged. He also created a scholarship program for young jazz critic, emerged from the, inter alia, Stanley Crouch, Gary Giddins, J R. Taylor and Peter Keepnews. For the subsequent "The Smithsonian Collection of Big Band Jazz" in 1985 he received a Grammy Award ( with Gunther Schuller ). From 1981 to 1991 he was editor of special projects at the Smithsonian Institution Press. Williams published alongside jazz books (especially "The Jazz Tradition" about his view of jazz history, the 1973 ASCAP - Deems Taylor Award for music criticism received ) also books on American popular culture, from comics - how about Elzie Segar, whom he greatly admired - to film and television.

His question the jazz estate he bequeathed the "Center of Black Music Research" ( CBMR ) at Columbia College in Chicago.

Works (selection)

  • Hidden in Plain Sight: An Examination of the American Arts ", Oxford University Press 1992 ISBN 0195075005
  • Jazz Changes, Oxford University Press, 1992 ( essay and interview collection ), ISBN 0195083490
  • The Jazz Tradition, Oxford University Press 1983, 1993 ( first 1970), ISBN 0195078160
  • Jazz Heritage, Oxford University Press 1985, 1988
  • Jazz in its time, Oxford University Press 1989, 1991
  • Where's the Melody: A Listener 's Introduction to Jazz. Da Capo, 1983 ( first 1966), ISBN 0306801833
  • Edited by The Art of Jazz - essays in the nature and development of Jazz, da Capo 1979
  • Jazz Masters of New Orleans, McMillan 1967, da Capo 1978 ( eleven portraits)
  • Companion book to the Smithsonian Collection of Classical Jazz 1987
  • Jelly Roll Morton, Cassel u.Co. 1962
  • King Oliver, Barnes 1960, German publisher Hatje 1960
  • Edited Jazz Panorama, Crowell - Collier 1962, new Da Capo Press, 1979
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