Gary Giddins

Gary Giddins appears in the following:

Remembering Jazz Icon Dave Brubeck

Thursday, December 06, 2012

Dave Brubeck, one of the most influential and popular figures in jazz, died Wednesday of heart failure in Norwalk, Conn., the day before he would have turned 92 years old. 

Best known for his iconic quartet recordings from the late 1950s and '60s -- particularly on his seminal 1959 album Time Out -- Brubeck brought an inventive polyrhythmic approach to composition that changed the shape and sound of jazz.

"He made the name 'Dave' cool," says Gary Giddins, jazz critic and Executive Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at CUNY's Graduate Center. "He made horn-rimmed glasses cool. The guy looked in so many ways to be so square -- and yet he really did become a defining figure that people just gravitated to."

Giddins joins us to remember Brubeck's iconic style in a career that spanned almost seven decades and more than 100 albums and to play three of his favorite songs from the pianist and composer.

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Vanished Venues: The Village Gate

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Our series on concert halls and nightclubs from New York music history continues with a look at one of the city's great jazz temples: The Village Gate. We’ll talk with jazz historian and author Gary Giddins.

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America's Quintessential Music

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Born from the meeting of ragtime and blues, jazz journeyed to Chicago, New York and beyond. Along the way, the music became as complex as America itself. Music critic and scholar Gary Giddins, co-author of the new book Jazz, explains how he tackled that epic history.

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Inside Jazz and Jack Kerouac

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The history of jazz has been told in films like Bird and in Ken Burns' TV documentary. Today: music critic Gary Giddins talks about the new 700-page book he co-authored. Later: jazz music inspired writer Jack Kerouac. Indie rockers Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar perform songs from their soundtrack for ...