Feather on Jazz
GITLER, IRA
Feather on Jazz The Book of Jazz. By Leonard Feather. Horizon. 280 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by Ira Gitler Contributor to "Metronome" album annotator for Prestige, Blue Note and Signal...
...Lack of space apparently prevented Feather from discussing every musician at length, especially in the crowded sections on piano and tenor saxophone...
...The book ends with a chapter on "Horizons: Jazz in 1984," in which a number of musicians, including Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Voice of America disc-jockey Willis Conover and the author try to predict the directions jazz will take...
...He reminds us that "the first century of jazz still has four decades to run...
...Says Feather: "Jazz today is a young man's art and a young, immature art in itself...
...But even if he does not read music or know anything about a G-flat augmented seventh, he will glean certain insights from the reading...
...Reviewed by Ira Gitler Contributor to "Metronome" album annotator for Prestige, Blue Note and Signal Records LEONARD FEATHER, in his Encyclopedia of Jazz and the Encyclopedia Yearbook, opened up a new world for many people...
...A Verve recording with the same title—MGV 8230—reproduces ten of the solos mentioned here and may be recommended to the uninitiate as well as the musician...
...But some of his choices are questionable...
...Feather on Jazz The Book of Jazz...
...In the first of these sections, Feather explodes the theory that jazz originated in New Orleans alone...
...It also contains provocative sections on "New Orleans," "Jazz and Race" and "The Anatomy of Improvisation...
...Yet he pays little attention to the superior attitude—based on musical "feel" rather than technical prowess—still displayed by many young Negro jazzmen...
...It will also be of value to the professional jazz listener...
...Through interviews with musicians like Wilbur de Paris, Willie "the Lion" Smith and Luckey Roberts, and composers like Eubie Blake and the late W. C. Handy, he shows that at the beginning of this century jazz activities were scattered around the country...
...Like Feather's earlier books, The Book of Jazz should be required reading for the neophyte...
...In the piano division, for instance, talents like Red Garland, Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris are not mentioned, while Buddy Greco, Roy Kral and Ralph Sharon are included...
...The bulk of the book consists of chapters about individual instruments, small combos and big bands...
...His new Book of Jazz gives us comprehensive chapters on the history of various instruments, or instrumental divisions, through their myriad players...
...Most of "The Anatomy of Improvisation" will be over the layman's head...
...In "Jazz and Race," Feather provides an illuminating history of segregation and integration in the jazz world, and its bearing on American society as a whole...
Vol. 41 • October 1958 • No. 32
