Who's Who in Jazz:
IRVINE, KEITH
Who's Who in Jazz The Encyclopedia of Jazz. By Leonard Feather. Horizon. 360 pp. $10.00. Reviewed by Keith Irvine Editor, "Africa Today" Jazz, it was recently discovered, is America's "secret...
...Sometimes, one is inclined to think that the jazz of the 1950s lacks a contemporary critic to train one's senses in the way that Hughues Panassie and Leonard Hibbs did in earlier decades, and to instill without pushing the parallel to Undignified lengths--a feeling for jazz into their readers with the same art with which Virginia Woolf was able to instill a feeling for literature...
...A slight oversight...
...No Rosetta Crawford...
...A sad omission...
...No Rosetta Howard...
...Finally, it should be mentioned that the book begins with an introductory plug from Duke Ellington and ends with a glossary of terms used by the jazz fraternity...
...For surely Bechet deserves a place alongside Buddy De Franco...
...jazz is not being created in the same spontaneous way that it once was and that many abroad still imagine it to be...
...Certainly it is--whatever formative influences went into its making--a completely indigenous modern American art form...
...Perhaps the most evocative writer remains Charles Delaunay--the Delaunay of Hot Discography, whose dry printed text, to the uninitiated, remains as uninspiring as a telephone directory...
...Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia of Ja:z is not the one...
...Feather, he would ask the reason for the sad neglect of blues singers...
...Or will it take a new decade to set things right once more...
...All is not lost by any means, but there is no hiding the change in the tempo of the times...
...The Encyclopedia of Jazz may not be an indispensable book, but it is indisputably a valuable one...
...at least, has been given her rightful due...
...The information it contains is the fruit of many years of observation and note-taking, the kind of knowledge the acquisition of which cannot he measured in man-hours, because it can only come from an engrossing interest remorselessly pursued...
...Tunisian nationalists and Southeast Asians alike have been known to show reactions to jazz that were as strongly positive as they were unlooked for...
...both as a reference work for those whose interest is of an academic character, and as a bulky vade mecum for those whose interest lies in the players themselves...
...Bechet (as well as Mr...
...For those well versed, many elusive facts will emerge from the hours of browsing that the volume offers...
...Surely it must have been an oversight also (I hope it was an oversight) that caused the omission of Sidney Bechet from the 120-odd names on the list of whose who were "most important" from the birth of jazz down to 1950...
...That is not to say that it is not a handsome production, as well as being unquestionably useful within its self-imposed limitations...
...De Franco) is depicted for all to see...
...When it comes to illustrations, however, sins of lese-majeste may be forgotten, for the photographs are excellent, there are over 200 of them, and Mr...
...no Trixie Smith, either...
...Is it the world...
...True, nowadays there is jazz being produced that would have broken over our heads with all the ravishing force of a new musical experience in the old days...
...Since 1923, when for cultural reasons an American jazz-band leader was denied permission to land in England, several successive "younger generations" in Europe have enthusiastically recognized jazz as one of the component elements of their own climate...
...Distressing oversights, no doubt--but, bless us...
...Yet, that critic is still lacking...
...True, in the earlier, perhaps more unselective days, we rated Red Nichols's Five Pennies with Louis's Hot Five, bestowing upon them all our unstinted admiration...
...Yet, the fact of the matter is that, "back in the States...
...It is hardly surprising, therefore, if current projects are afoot to make political capital of this cultural potential...
...Is it that modern ears are more blase and modern hearts less inflammable...
...It is, of course, too easy, in a field within which the passions of strong musical conviction are constantly clashing, to carp and quarrel...
...It comes as something of a relief, after this, to find that she...
...And yet, is it we who have changed...
...Reviewed by Keith Irvine Editor, "Africa Today" Jazz, it was recently discovered, is America's "secret weapon" in the cultural cold war...
...If it is such a book that we are waiting for...
...The emphasis here, instead of Delaunay's on recorded music, is on the players themselves, for the greater part of the book is a "Who's Who" of jazz...
...Stands Bessie Smith where she did...
...Today, its influence is more widespread than ever...
...again, do we need a new book on the subject...
...Nevertheless, if this critic were to buttonhole Mr...
Vol. 39 • March 1956 • No. 10
