Faces In The Crowd: Musicians, Writers, Actors, And Filmmakers

Being a great jazz critic is hard enough. Gary Giddins, however, is much more than that--he's one of the smartest, wittiest, and most versatile critics this country has produced. All of his collections are well worth owning. But in Faces in the Crowd, Giddins ranges beyond his customary jazz-and-pop beat, delivering superb assessments of Robert Altman, Jack Benny, James M. Cain, Spike Lee, Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Goldwyn, and Myrna Loy. His enthusiasms are hard to resist, and on almost every page he makes you think about his subject from a novel (and enlightening!) angle.