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Books by Whitney Balliett for Swingin' Lovers

Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: books, Frank Sinatra, in memoriam, jazz, Murray Kempton, music, Whitney Balliett

Balliett, who seemed a permanent voice in the New Yorker chorus, died yesterday. From the Washington Post obituary (to which I've added Amazon links):

Mr. Balliett contributed short articles for the New Yorker's Talk of the Town section as well as book, film and theater reviews. He also wrote poetry. He left the magazine staff in 1998. Collections of his New Yorker writings were published frequently over the years. His books included American Singers and American Musicians. [Followed by American Musicians II: Seventy-one Portraits in Jazz.] One massive volume, subtitled "a Journal of Jazz," came out in 2000 [Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz 1954-2001].

Here's the link to the full Amazon listing for Ballliett, sorted by publication date; here it is at Powell's Books. In 1996, Balliett and Murray Kempton co-wrote (it seems) a 1,037-word piece on the occasion of Frank Sinatra's retirement for The New York Review of Books. I'd say that's worth $3!

1 comments

Comments

This is a very weird obit. Whitney Balliet
was infamous for his jazz reviews at the
New Yorker. They hardly mention this in
the obit. They make him sound like a two-bit
occasional writer. I thought he wrote his
jazz column for decades and was considered
a master in his field.

Bruce RobinsonFebruary 05, 2007

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