Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
In Memoriam: John Hammond Jr., 1942–2026
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
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
Hammond came to the blues through the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which he experienced firsthand in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
“Cerebral and academic thought is a different way to approach music,” Flea says of his continuing dive into jazz. “I’ve always relied on emotion and intuition and physicality.”
Mar 30, 2026 10:30 PM
In the relatively small pantheon of certifiable rock stars venturing into the intersection of pop music and jazz, the…
Lettuce, from left: Eric Coomes, Adam Deitch, Ryan Zoidis, Eric Bloom, Adam Smirnoff and Nigel Hall
Feb 17, 2026 11:05 AM
They were Berklee misfits. Neither jazzy enough for the straightahead crowd at Boston’s highly prestigious College of…
New Orleans Trad Jazz Camp
Feb 19, 2026 10:39 AM
Jazz camps have exploded around the globe as a summertime tradition for working on your chops and making new friends.…
Blindfold Test proctor Ted Panken, left, with the Grammy-winning Nicole Zuraitis.
Feb 24, 2026 12:00 PM
After earning the 2024 Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammy for her seventh album, How Love Begins (La Reserve), comprising 12…
