Will Friedwald is the jazz (and cabaret) critic for The New York Sun
please contact him at
will-friedwald@nyc.rr.com

Dubbed (by Past Times magazine) as "The Poet Laureate of vintage pop music," Friedwald is internationally recognized as the leading authority on jazz singing and "adult" pop music. He is the author of three books on the subject, the most recent of which is Tony Bennett's autobiography, The Good Life (1998, Pocket Books) and also include Jazz Singing and Sinatra! The Song is You, both published in hardcover by Scribners (Simon and Schuster) and in paperback by Da Capo Press. Sinatra! The Song is You is the first full-length musical biography of Frank Sinatra and was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as the "single most important book on Sinatra ever published." In 1996, Sinatra! Received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Excellence In Music Criticism.

Since 1984, Friedwald has written regularly about music for The Village Voice and also appears frequently in The New York Times. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, Oxford American, New York, Entertainment Weekly, New York Newsday, L. A. Weekly, Mojo, BBC Music Magazine, Stereo Review, Fi(Delity), The New York Observer, Seven Days and numerous music and film journals.

With prolific television and radio experience under his belt, Friedwald has appeared on hundreds of programs in both mediums. He has served as a consultant and on-screen commentator on many television documentaries and news programs (including ABC Nightline, The MacNeil Lehrer Report, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, and A&E Biography's profiles of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Mel Tormé). On the radio, he has hosted many of his own regular disc jockey radio shows, and has also served as a commentator / "columnist" on the National Public Radio program Artbeat.. He was a frequent guest with Stan Martin and Jonathan Schwartz on WQEW, and was the subject of an hour-long interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. He served as a consultant and interviewee on NPR's massive Ellington project as well as on dozens of installments of Jazz Profiles and other NPR documentary programs. In addition, Friedwald has produced and annotated hundreds of compact disc reissues, including several Grammy-winning packages (out of a total of six Grammy nominations).

Star Dust Melodies:
The Biographies of 12 of
America's Most Popular Songs

Published in June 2002 by Pantheon Press,
Robert Gottlieb, editor

The Art of Romance

Featuring Phil Woods

The Good Life

The Autobiography of TONY BENNETT
Published in 1998 by Pocket Books
(Simon & Schuster)

Sinatra!
The Song Is You
(A Singer's Art)

Published in 1995 by Simon & Schuster / Scribner's 1995, also available in soft cover and
foreign language editions.

 

Frank Sinatra: The Best of the Capitol Years (Paperback)

Warner Bros. Animation Art (Hardcover)

Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons
(Paperback)