Faces in the Crowd

About this book

As an essayist and Village Voice columnist, Gary Giddins is widely known as a preeminent jazz writer. Walter Clemons, writing in Newsweek, hailed him as "the best jazz critic now at work," praising his "elegant prose" and "encyclopedic knowledge." Yet he has won a devoted audience for his reflections on popular culture, books, and movies as well--including a marvelous essay on Jack Benny that Gay Talese selected for Best American Essays of 1987. In Faces in the Crowd, Giddins once again demonstrates his graceful style and sharp wit in a brilliant collection of critiques, assessments, and profiles of major figures in the culture of our century. Faces in the Crowd is a virtual Gary Giddins reader, a potent collection of his finest writing from the last fifteen years. Ranging from fond reflection to interview-and-commentary to close critical analysis, Giddins explores the achievements of thirty-seven artists: show people, divas, musicians, and writers, ranging from Irving Berlin to Spike Lee, Billie Holliday to Kay Starr, Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis, Elias Canetti to Philip Roth. Through every essay, his observations are sharp, his reactions honest, his judgments right on target…