BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Whitney Balliett was esteemed jazz critic. He graduated from Cornell in 1951, and
went on to write for The New Yorker. For nearly 50 years, he contributed to the
publication with over 550 articles, and many more unsigned. He is known for his
non-technical approach to criticism, using artful adjectives and vivid verbs to
frame the music. His writing was more poetry than anything, and reading it, one will
find metaphors and synesthetic synopses understandable by even the most uninformed
music listener.
