Famed jazz writer Whitney Balliett dies
Friday, February 2, 2007
Whitney Balliett, the man who memorably described jazz as "the sound of surprise" died yesterday at the age of 80 in New York. He had been suffering from liver cancer. One of the most admired jazz writers he spent most of his career writing profiles and reviews for The New Yorker magazine. The son of a businessman, Balliett was born in Manhattan in April 1926 and became interested in jazz as a schoolboy when he heard drummer Zutty Singleton perform at a New York jam session. After attending Cornell University he began to write for the Saturday Review and then later The New Yorker in 1957.
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