Francis Davis, Esteemed Jazz Critic, Dies at 78

By Michael J. West I Apr. 22, 2025

Davis was a two-time Grammy winner for liner notes.
(Photo: Ken Winter/Getty Images)

Francis Davis, an august jazz and cultural critic who won both awards and esteem in print, film and radio, died April 14 in Philadelphia after a long illness. He was 78.

His death was confirmed by his wife, radio personality Terry Gross. Cause of death was emphysema.

Davis reviewed jazz for several high-profile platforms, including the Philadelphia Inquirer; The Atlantic, for which he was also a contributing editor; Fresh Air, for which he was the original jazz critic; and the Village Voice. He was also an educator, teaching classes on jazz and the blues at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania. He was a two-time Grammy winner for liner notes, won multiple ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards, and received both Guggenheim and Pew fellowships.

Davis was renowned for the vast scope of his jazz observations and taste. “Years ago … maybe as late as 1960, if you were writing a book on the history of jazz, you were almost required to begin it with a definition of what jazz was,” he remarked in a 2001 interview. “Now, I don’t know if you can do that. If anything, you would end the book with a partial stab at a definition, but even that would be lacking. There are so many different kinds of jazz at this point.”

Francis John Davis was born Aug. 30, 1946, in Philadelphia. His mother, Dorothy, worked as a medical clerk, and she and Davis’ grandmother raised him. He graduated from John Bartram High School and matriculated at Temple University, where he graduated in 1969. While a student, he worked at a record store on the University of Pennsylvania campus; he continued working there after graduation and met Gross there in the late ’70s. She hired him as an on-air music critic at Philadelphia’s WHYY–FM.

Davis began working at the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1978, moving to the Atlantic in 1984. He also signed on to Gross’ National Public Radio program, Fresh Air, in 1987. (The two married in 1994). In 2004, he took over the jazz column in the Village Voice. In 2006, he started the Voice’s year-end jazz critics’ poll, which moved first to NPR Music and then to The Arts Fuse, where it is now known as the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll.

Davis authored multiple books, including In the Moment (1986); Outcats (1990); The History of the Blues (1995); and Jazz and Its Discontents: A Francis Davis Reader (2004).

Diagnosed with emphysema and Parkinson’s disease in the fall of 2024, Davis entered hospice care at his home, where he remained until his death.

He is survived by Gross. DB