[Dixielandjazz] Leonard Feather

[Paigevan at cs.com]

Feather, who was everywhere in the 50s and took every advantage he could do 
put down musicians he disliked (as, for example, on his talking record (for 
Dot) with Willie the Lion, where he had about two minutes to kill at the end 
of the album and asked a question of Willie that was guaranteed to result in 
a putdown of Jelly Roll Morton, one of Feather's chief objects of scorn. He 
seems to have mellowed out a little, and some of the stuff from his LA days 
is surprisingly readable. He was also involved in the music business from too 
many angles to function well as a critic- since he was not only writing about 
jazz, he was trying to work as a songwriter, pianist and record producer. 
Generally, he only favored whatever was new until jazz finally outdistanced 
him in the 70s and 80s.
As to Kenton, he appears to have been a racist. Gary Giddins wrote a 
hilarious analysis of Kenton on Visions of Jazz which, among other things 
indicates that Kenton favored George Wallace's presidential candidacy and 
that Kenton's followers used to send out notices of his appearances etc with 
the initials KKK (for Keep Kenton Kicking) as a return address.