Whitney Balliett, who died yesterday at 80, was the longtime jazz reviewer for the New Yorker.
A reporter, historian, and expert interviewer, Balliett's greatest gift was as an astute listener with the rare ability to capture the sound of the music in words. He wrote with a cadence and rhythm that mirrored the music itself, and was as witty and fun to read as he was serious and scholarly.
He wrote that Blossom Dearie had a voice so small that “without a microphone it would not reach the second floor of a doll's house"; he described another singer, Betty Carter, as being so far out that she “makes Sarah Vaughan sound like Kate Smith." He once compared the midperformance moaning of pianist Keith Jarrett to that of a woman giving birth. Balliett also likened jazz drumming to tap dancing: “a great drummer dances sitting down, a great tap dancer drums standing up."
Balliett's favorite kind of jazz was intensely melodic, the style he had grown up with in the '30s and '40s; he tended to favor the great swing players and their latter-day descendants. He also had a fascination for the Great American Songbook, and the more traditional singers of both the jazz and related pop variety who sang it.
Yet he also had a special proclivity for drummers and did not neglect the many equally essential modern and postmodern players who flourished in the decades of his tenure at the magazine. Some of his earliest columns focused on Jimmy Giuffre, Sonny Rollins, and even the extremely avant-garde Cecil Taylor.
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A reporter, historian, and expert interviewer, Balliett's greatest gift was as an astute listener with the rare ability to capture the sound of the music in words. He wrote with a cadence and rhythm that mirrored the music itself, and was as witty and fun to read as he was serious and scholarly.
He wrote that Blossom Dearie had a voice so small that “without a microphone it would not reach the second floor of a doll's house"; he described another singer, Betty Carter, as being so far out that she “makes Sarah Vaughan sound like Kate Smith." He once compared the midperformance moaning of pianist Keith Jarrett to that of a woman giving birth. Balliett also likened jazz drumming to tap dancing: “a great drummer dances sitting down, a great tap dancer drums standing up."
Balliett's favorite kind of jazz was intensely melodic, the style he had grown up with in the '30s and '40s; he tended to favor the great swing players and their latter-day descendants. He also had a fascination for the Great American Songbook, and the more traditional singers of both the jazz and related pop variety who sang it.
Yet he also had a special proclivity for drummers and did not neglect the many equally essential modern and postmodern players who flourished in the decades of his tenure at the magazine. Some of his earliest columns focused on Jimmy Giuffre, Sonny Rollins, and even the extremely avant-garde Cecil Taylor.
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