Alumni Award

Listening to great music is a privilege, but trying to describe it is a much more difficult task. For more than three decades, Gary M. Giddins ’70 has articulated the meaning—and the value—of what we hear within those notes through insightful, observant music criticism.

At Grinnell, Giddins earned a degree in English, and he kept busy outside the classroom as concerts chair and film chair. He received an honorary degree from Grinnell College in 1988.

Not long after he graduated, he became a music and film critic for the Village Voice, a post he held for 30 years. He is best known for his writing about jazz. One of his books, Visions of Jazz, earned a National Book Critics Circle Award, and he received a Jazz Journalism Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

His exceptional range as a writer has been recognized by many—he has earned a Peabody Award for his writing for the film John Hammond: From Bessie Smith to Bruce Springsteen. He has also received a Grammy Award for best album notes for Sinatra: The Voice. In 1986, received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Today, as a freelancer, Giddins continues to write for a range of top publications, including The New Yorker and Jazz Times. His intelligence and perceptiveness, said one critic, help us "see our culture more clearly."

For helping us understand and appreciate the music that is all around us, Grinnell is pleased to recognize Gary M. Giddins ’70.