Whitney Lyon Balliett (April 17, 1926 – February 1, 2007) was a jazz critic and book reviewer for The New Yorker, which he wrote for from 1954 until 2001.
Biography Balliett was born in Manhattan and was raised in Glen Cove, New York, on Long Island. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy, where he learned to play drums in a band he summed up as "baggy Dixieland"; he played summer gigs at a Center Island yacht club.
He was drafted into the Army in 1946, interrupting his freshman year at Cornell University, to which he returned to finish his degree in 1951 and where he was a member of Delta Phi fraternity. He then took a job at The New Yorker, where he was hired by Katherine White, one of the magazine's fiction editors. He went on to write more than 550 signed pieces for The New Yorker, as well as many anonymous pieces.
The New York Review of Books published a few articles by Balliett between 1998 and 2003.
Acclaimed for his literary writing style, Balliett died at his Manhattan home on February 1, 2007, aged 80, from liver cancer. He was survived by his second wife, Nancy Balliett, and his five children (from both marriages): James Fargo Balliett, Blue Balliett, Will Balliett, Julie Lyon Rose, and Whitney Lyon Balliett Jr.
Bibliography
Books
Such Sweet Thunder: 49 Pieces on Jazz, 1966, Bobbs-Merrill Company Super-drummer: A Profile of Buddy Rich, 1968 Ecstasy at the Onion: 31 Pieces on Jazz, 1971 Alec Wilder and His Friends, 1974, Houghton Mifflin New York Notes: A Journal of Jazz, 1972-1975, 1976, Houghton Mifflin Improvising: Sixteen Jazz Musicians and Their Art, 1977, Oxford University Press American Singers, 1979, Oxford University Press Night Creature: A Journal of Jazz 1975-1980, 1981, Oxford University Press Jelly Roll, Jabbo, and Fats: 19 Portraits in Jazz, 1983, Oxford University Press American Musicians: Fifty-Six Portraits in Jazz, 1986, Oxford University Press American Singers: Twenty-seven Portraits in Song, 1988, Oxford University Press Barney, Bradley, and Max: Sixteen Portraits in Jazz, 1989, Oxford University Press Goodbyes and Other Messages: A Journal of Jazz, 1981-1990, 1991, Oxford University Press American Musicians II: Seventy-one Portraits in Jazz, 1996, Oxford University Press Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz 1954-2000, 2000, St. Martin's Press New York Voices: Fourteen Portraits, 2006, University Press of Mississippi
Essays and reporting "John Gordon's Folk Art: A Great Flowering of Free Spirits", The New Yorker, February 3, 1973.
"Coming Out Again" (on Anita Ellis), The New Yorker, July 31, 1978.
Book reviews YearReview articleWork(s) reviewed1985 Young Hearts Crying by Richard Yates Scandal, or Priscilla's Kindness by A. N. Wilson
Balliett's life and work
Notes
External links
John Fordham, "Obituary | Whitney Balliett", The Guardian, February 7, 2007. Whitney Balliett's contributions to The New Yorker. Accessed June 10, 2026.