News
Professor David Hajdu's work anthologized among best music writing of the year
November 22, 2011
Columbia Journalism School Professor David Hajdu's profile 
of jazz composer Fred Hersch was selected for "Best Music Writing 2011," a collection edited by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross and published this week by Da Capo Press.
Hadju's piece, "Giant Steps: The Survival of a Great Jazz Pianist," was originally published in the New York Times Magazine in 2010. In "Best Music Writing 2011" Hajdu joins an esteemed list of culture writers, including Sasha Frere-Jones, James Wood, and Wendy Lesser. Daphne Carr is
series editor of the collections, which date to 2006.
Hajdu is also the author of "Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn," "Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times
of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina," and "Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics and Culture." All three books were finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and all three won the Deems Taylor Award for music writing. He is the music
critic for The New Republic and also blogs weekly for TNR.com
Read more news from the Journalism School