Leonard Feather

Steven A. Cerra

"Leonard Feather has dedicated his life to the development and propagation of jazz, mainly as a distinguished journalist and critic. This book, compiled from his diaries, documents his varied experiences in the jazz business as musician, songwriter and record producer. We are all fortunate that he has chosen to share his rare experiences with us." — Benny Carter, Jazz saxophonist, composer-arranger, bandleader

I recently came across a copy of Leonard Feather’s The Jazz Years: Eyewitness To An Era. The paperback version was published by DaCapo Press in 1987. Over the years, I had misplaced mine and I found a very fine used copy on offer at a local bookstore.

The young clerk who helped me complete my purchase asked me if “He was anyone important like Bing Crosby?” “How did you learn about Bing?,” I asked. “Oh, he was featured on TV program that was broadcast on public television recently," he replied. "Whad'ya think of him?," I asked. "He was a pretty cool dude," he said. He smiled at the look of stunned amazement that must have come over my face at his response.

 My reply to his question about Leonard Feather was something along the lines of this quotation by the distinguished Jazz author Gene Lees:

"Leonard Feather is the most important critic and chronicler jazz has had. He has written about the music longer—uninterruptedly since 1934—and more consistently than anyone else in the world.”

I think my description of Leonard’s importance in the world of Jazz had about as much impact on the bookstore clerk as the viewing of the Bing Crosby TV program that he had viewed as part of his studies, but I was glad to have Leonard’s book in my library so I could re-read it and share some of his singular memories with you on these pages.

I was fortunate to be in Los Angeles when Leonard was hired in 1965 by Charles Champlin, the Entertainment Editor of The Los Angeles Times, and charged with contributing regular features about Jazz to the newspaper. It was always a delight to read Leonard’s columns which appeared in that paper twice weekly and in the expanded Sunday edition as his writings were insightful and instructive. If Jazz can, as some say, be learned and not taught, then I learned a lot about Jazz from Leonard.

In addition to contributing many articles about Jazz to select periodicals beginning in the 1930’s, Leonard Feather was the author of numerous books on the subject, including his standard reference work Encyclopedia of Jazz [which has since become co-authored by Ira Gitler], Laughter from the Hip (with Jack Tracy, the former editor of Downbeat and record producer for Argo, Emarcy and Mercury), and Inside Jazz, all published by Da Capo Press.

read more: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com.br/2015/02/george-shearing-and-leonard-feather.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+JazzProfiles+(Jazz+Profiles)