Miles on Leonard Feather
Don Mopsick
Beebe:
I have been asked to post a piece wherin I related an encounter with MIles
Davis that had some significance to me. This was in a piece I wrote on
Leonard Feather, a prominent jazz critic years ago.
from www.jazzinstituteofchicago.org under jazzgram click on Commentary
Leonard Feather
by <A HREF3D"mailto:Jim...@aol.com">Jim Beebe</A>
[Ed. Lorraine Feather's article about her father, to which Beebe refers, has
been removed from this website at her request.]
I wrote this not only for myself but for so many musicians who are no longer
here and never had a forum to call Feather on his scurrilous writing.
Lorraine Feather's piece, "Life with Feather," cries out for correction and
comment. Her recollections of her father, jazz critic Leonard Feather, are
much fonder than those of most jazz musicians. Sadly, she carries forth the
same bitter prejudices and distorted history that were harbored so long by
her father.
Right off Lorraine tells us that the Esquire Jazz Polls (1940s) would
"typically honor Dixieland artists and ignore more modern sounds...." The
inference here is that Esquire rigged these Polls in favor of so called
"Dixieland" artists. That is until Leonard Feather came to the rescue with a
Critics Poll. Of course the "Critics" would know better than the average fan
and would vote for the "modern" artists. Just who these inferior "Dixieland"
artists were is never identified.
The truth is a wee bit different. Leonard Feather came here from England and
wangled his way into a position of influence as a writer on the NY Jazz
scene
in the 1940s. As the newer, more modern jazz sounds and artists began to
emerge, Feather decreed that all pre-bebop musicians were hopelessly old-hat
and outdated. No matter what style or era they played within, they were now
lumped together as "Dixieland" musicians. Feather wasn't the only writer to
do this, but he was by far the most vicious. Many great musicians who now
most of us revere as legends Feather declared antiques.
This had devastating ramifications for many musicians, as younger fans
picked
up on this via the jazz magazines that Feather and the others wrote for, and
they would shun any but the latest be-bop musicians.
Art Hodes is a good example. He was then very active in New York and became
one of Feather's targets on his growing hit list. Hodes was also doing some
respectable writing which moved him notches higher on this list. In every
column or article, Feather would take nasty shots at Hodes...as corny,
outdated, etc.
Feather had also gained some influence with the jazz record companies. They
were afraid of him, afraid that he might shoot down their recordings or
artists in print. Lester Young had a contract to do a recording of blues
tunes for a particular record company and he wanted Art Hodes on piano for
this date. Art had worked a number of times with Lester and he was one of
the
great blues pianists, so this made perfect sense.
But Feather stepped in and told the record company not to use Hodes, he was
too old fashioned. Hodes was cut out of this date at a time when he
desparately needed the moneyE28094and the pleasure and artistic recogniti
on of recording with Pres.( Lester Young). Art never forgot this vicious
act and
in his later years he told of getting booked on a jazz cruise with Feather.
Art said that Feather acted as though none of the early nastiness ever
happened.
I was a young musician/fan getting out of high school, going to college and
into miltary service. I had fallen in love with earlier "classic" jazz
styles
and musicians. This was the New Orleans jazz style known broadly as
Dixieland
jazz. Dixieland was an honorable term then which denoted the polyphonic
counterpoint ensemble style. Honorable, that is, until Leonard Feather
decided that it was an out-of-date, inferior, and corny.
I began reading the jazz publications and Feather was a predominant writer.
Almost every article or review was negative in tone and usually full of
contempt and vicious remarks about "Dixieland" or pre-bop musicians. But
even
the modern musicians became targets of his poison pen.
I could not, for the life of me, figure out why he was constantly knocking
this wonderful music and these tremendous musicians. This was the wonderful
78 recording era and I had no pictures or anything to go by. I didn't know
if
these guys were young or old, white or black or whatever. And I didn't care.
All I knew was that I liked the music. I was aware of the modern sounds and
recordings but at that time I was not much interested in them.
The negativety that eminated from Feather and others was so fierce that I,
as
a young fan, imagined that the "Dixieland" and "Bebop" musicians must hate
each other. Oddly enough, the guy who straightened me out on this was Miles
Davis. Here is how that happened.
After a couple of years of college, the Korean war was on and I ended up in
the Marines and was stationed in San Francisco for a year. This was very
fortunate for me, as almost every great jazz musician in every style came
through. The Hangover Club had the leading traveling dixieland-traditional
groups and the Blackhawk booked the leading Mainstream-modern groups. I
bounced like a yo-yo between these two clubs...and others.
At one point Miles Davis was at the Blackhawk. Bob Scobey was having a
bi-weekly Sunday jazz session with guest artist at another club. I was
usually there and Scobey's sessions were in the
traditional-dixieland-mainstream bag. I walked in there one Sunday and Miles
Davis was the guest artist. I was stunned...I could not believe this because
in my mind these guys had to hate each other. Yet here was Miles who was
very
congenial and joined right in. They did middle-of-the-road stuff that
everyone was comfortable with and they seemed to be having a good time
musically.
During a break I got up my nerve and went up to Miles. I stammered out
something to the effect that I couldn't believe that he was there playing
with Scobey as I had it in my mind from what I read that stylistically they
could never play together and they must dislike each other. Right off Miles
said, "You've been reading that asshole Leonard Feather, haven't you?" I
nodded and Miles neatly and briefly explained that the divisions in jazz
were
artificial and promoted by writers like Feather.
He said that they were professional musicians and these divisions and
contempt for other styles did not exist among professionals, except with
some
of the younger ones. He explained briefly how the different jazz styles were
connected and interwoven.
This little exchange with Miles changed forever the way I looked at jazz and
music in general. I became a professional musician and made a rather loose
hobby of tracking Leonard Feather and his writing via Downbeat and other
publications.
Feather ran the Downbeat Blindfold Test for a number of years. Each month
would have a different guest, a name musician and Feather would play
recordings without telling who was on the recordings. The guest was to try
and guess who it was and make comments. Feather was quite sly and used this
forum to, of course, put down the "dixieland-classic" jazz musicians.
Jelly Roll Morton became one of his main targets and Feather made a
ferocious
effort to denigrate and discredit Morton. And he was slick in the way that
he
did it. He would have a modern artist as guest and play him one of Morton's
records...not one of Morton's better records but always one of his lesser
recordings. The idea was to elicit a negative comment...which he ususally
got...but not always.
Feather would also use this forum to try and pit musicians against each
other...to get them to make negative comments about each other. Here is an e
xample: Jack Teagarden was his guest and Jack hardly ever knocked anyone.
But
Feather got him to. He played Jack the worst recording that Bill Harrris
ever
did. Out of all the great recordings that Harris did, Feather picked this
one, done when he was drunk or sick, that should never have been released.
Feather relished revealing in print Teagarden's scathing remarks.
A few muscians did get in some payback. Muggsy Spanier slugged Feather in a
bar over some things that he had written and there were other and some quite
clever bits of revenge. Ralph Sutton always called him, Trafalgar Quill.
Sadly, Feather was quite universally despised by most jazz musicians.
I was in L.A. one summer after Feather became the jazz critic for the Los
Angeles Times. His reviews were almost always negative. Great musicians,
many
of whom are now legends, were cut down with nasty, vitriolic remarks. A few
years later I was with Art Hodes at a Disneyland Jazz event. In our group
was
Doc Evans, Barney Bigard, Bob Cousins etc...there is no way that this was
not
a good group. Not to Feather, who didn't forget his old target, Art Hodes.
It
was sad to see him attack Art yet once again in the L.A. Times.
Feather was an amateur song writer and was forever trying to pressure jazz
artists into recording his songs. British jazz writer Steve Voce, last year
in a Jazz Journal article, wrote of an interview with Stan Kenton. Kenton
told how Feather tried to strong arm him into doing an album of his songs.
Stan said that Feather's songs were hopeless and he couldn't record them.
Stan Kenton related how he turned down Feather as diplomatically as he could
but ever after this he became one of Feather's principle targets with a
barrage of columns and reviews which attacked Stan, his band and his
recordings.
One could go on at some length about Feather's negative influence on the
American Jazz scene. Lorraine Feather sees her father as "less a critic per
se than a champion of the music he had fallen in love with as a young
Englishman." I wish that this was so but the truth is otherwise.
Dennis J. Kosterman
wrote:
> ... until Leonard Feather came to the rescue with a
>Critics Poll. Of course the "Critics" would know better than the average fan...
I'm actually grateful for the existence of critics' polls. They don't
necessarily know *better* than the average fan, but they do have a
different perspective, and one that more closely matches my own
perspective than does that of the casual fan. The ultimate fans' poll
is the sales chart, and there's not much correlation between that and
the music I like. The critics have a much better batting average, at
least as far as my tastes are concerned.
Of course, the fans who read jazz magazines and take the trouble to
vote in polls run by jazz magazines probably have tastes not *too*
much different than mine -- but still, "popular" jazz artists like
Diana Krall and Pat Metheny tend to place higher in fans' polls than I
would place them if artistic merit were the only consideration (Note:
I like both Krall and Metheny; I just wouldn't rank them as high as
most fans' polls seem to).
>Feather ran the Downbeat Blindfold Test for a number of years. Each month
>would have a different guest, a name musician and Feather would play
>recordings without telling who was on the recordings. The guest was to try
>and guess who it was and make comments.
>Feather would ... use this forum to try and pit musicians against each
>other...to get them to make negative comments about each other. Here is an
>example: Jack Teagarden was his guest and Jack hardly ever knocked anyone.
>But Feather got him to. He played Jack the worst recording that Bill Harrris
>ever did. Out of all the great recordings that Harris did, Feather picked this
>one, done when he was drunk or sick, that should never have been released.
>Feather relished revealing in print Teagarden's scathing remarks.
I always wondered about that. I remember him once playing a Jimi
Hendrix tune for Joe Pass. Now, I can think of numerous Hendrix songs
that Pass probably would have liked. But this wasn't any of those. It
was a noisy, distorted, feedback-laden studio jam from one of the
posthumous Hendrix albums -- certainly nothing that Hendrix would ever
have released had he lived. Of course, Pass hated it ("You can take
that off" less than a minute into the tune). I remember thinking "If
he wanted Joe's opinion on Hendrix, why on earth did he pick *that*
tune?" It's not good Hendrix, it's not typical Hendrix, and Joe's
reaction to it was entirely predictable.
I suppose one of the purposes of blindfold tests is to stir things up
-- that's part of what makes them "entertaining" -- but it does seem
dishonest to set someone up by playing something that's not at all
representative of their work in general, and blindfold tests seem to
do that a lot (now as well as then). You have to take them with a
large grain of salt.
Dennis J. Kosterman
den...@tds.net
Emerenziano Paronzini
Don Mopsick wrote:
> Kenton told how Feather tried to strong arm him into doing an album of his songs.
> Stan said that Feather's songs were hopeless and he couldn't record them.
at least "mighty like a blues" was good enough for Duke Ellington (among
lesser others) to record it.
regards, EP
Joseph Scott
> lesser others) to record it.
>
Don't assume that Duke thought it was good. Feather was eager for jazz
artists to record his tunes and was very powerful and influential in
the industry, and Duke was a smart, pragmatic businessman.
Joseph Scott
Glenn Wilson
may not have said these things to a 'stunned' Jim Beebe, and Jim's
description of Miles 'discussion' may or may not be accurate, based on Jim's
memory. If it is true, it's one of the few 'facts' in an otherwise
hate-filled diatribe. Too much summarizing, paraphasing, and opinionizing.
The agenda is obvious. I'm not, by any means, defending Leonard Feather,
but this is pretty unprofessional, IMHO.
Glenn
--
www.jazzmaniac.com
Emerenziano Paronzini
true. "mighty like a blues" is a pleasant and well crafted tune, though,
and duke's rendition is worth in itself - if i remember well.
regards, EP
Sum1
"Joseph Scott" <j_ns...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:a2d52481.03011...@posting.google.com...
I like that - "smart, pragmatic businessman." A few posters to this ng
have in other contexts referred to such behavior as "pandering" and "selling
out."
copen9370
if it is true, then jazz fans should know about it. i didn't know
anything bad about feather until a couple of years ago.
as far as unprofessional, if at least some of the stories are true,
then LF was very unprofessional, and what goes around... etc
sgordon
opposite musical bias.
Scott
Marc Sabatella
> > ... until Leonard Feather came to the rescue with a
> >Critics Poll. Of course the "Critics" would know better than the
average fan...
>
> I'm actually grateful for the existence of critics' polls. They don't
> necessarily know *better* than the average fan, but they do have a
> different perspective, and one that more closely matches my own
> perspective than does that of the casual fan. The ultimate fans' poll
> is the sales chart, and there's not much correlation between that and
> the music I like.
There is another important advantage of a critics' poll: the average
critic has *heard* more music than the average fan. It would not
surprise me to find out that the typical critic in a poll hears 100 new
releases a year in their entirety, while the typical fan might hear 10.
Knowing that Joe Blow thinks the latest major label release is the best
of year means little if it is actually the only thing he bought (and of
course, it was the only thing he bought because it was the one that got
the most press, the most radio airplay, etc). It ends up being a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
> I suppose one of the purposes of blindfold tests is to stir things up
> -- that's part of what makes them "entertaining" -- but it does seem
> dishonest to set someone up by playing something that's not at all
> representative of their work in general, and blindfold tests seem to
> do that a lot (now as well as then).
Well, the examples cited definitely seem to be baiting, but in general,
I can see another reasonable justification for playing unrepresentative
recordings in a blindfold chance - it is much more fun to surprise
someone with the unexpected thanto play him "So What" from "Kind of
Blue" and ask who the trumpet player is. But then, there would be no
need to go out of your way to choose something the subject would likely
hate.
--------------
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
Check out my latest CD, "Falling Grace"
Also "A Jazz Improvisation Primer", Sounds, Scores, & More:
http://www.outsideshore.com/
Don Mopsick
> > Glenn
Yep, thank goodness for an obvious, clearly thought-out agenda which is,
quoting what Jim Beebe was told by Miles Davis:
"He said...these divisions and contempt for other styles did not exist among
professionals, except with some
of the younger ones. He explained briefly how the different jazz styles were
connected and interwoven."
The are words to live by. Thanks, Glenn, for pointing out what you say is
obvious but needs to be re-stated forcefully.
My respect for Miles has risen tremendously.
Don Mopsick