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Francis Davis Contributor Profile
Davis's writing career began to take form in the scripts he wrote for a Philadelphia public-radio show (which he also produced and hosted) that specialized in playing out-of-print jazz. When his scripts evolved into more sophisticated jazz criticism, he started submitting them for publication and became a staff writer at a small New Jersey newspaper. Since his first article for The Atlantic, "The Loss of Count Basie" (August 1984), he has authored four books: In the Moment (1986), Outcats (1990), The History of the Blues: The Roots, the Music, the People From Charley Patton to Robert Cray (1995), and Bebop and Nothingness: Jazz and Pop at the End of the Century (1996).
Davis writes for a variety of publications, including The Village Voice,
The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Stereo Review. A 1994 Pew Fellow in
the Arts, he teaches a course in jazz, blues, and folklore at the University of
Pennsylvania and is currently working on a biography of John Coltrane and a
history of jazz.
Copyright © 1996 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. |
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