[Dixielandjazz] Re: 'Mouldy Figs' term

[JimDBB at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/16/2003 9:38:08 PM Central Standard Time, 
ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu writes:

> "In a letter to Esquire, A serviceman named Sam Platt, who felt that 
> jazz had gone astray, coined the term 'moldy fig.' It was picked up 
> by Leonard and others to mean anyone who only liked the older style 
> of jazz. A 1946 article in the Jazz Record declared: 'Every single 
> year there's a new crop of phoneys trying to pervert or suppress or 
> emasculate jazz. This year it's Diz Gillespie...a few years ago it 
> was Cab Calloway...' Leonard later admitted regretfully that during 
> this period, his own articles were often venomous as well. He likened 
> the figs to fascists in a tirade published in Metronome. A writer for 
> The Record Changer responded by altering Leonard's name and those of 
> other Metronome writers to resemble those of prominent Communists. 
> One Esquire reader wrote a letter in which he declared Leonard 
> incompetent and referred contemptuously to Coleman Hawkins and Roy 
> Eldridge as 'jump boys.'"
> 
> (Interesting (especially in light of Brother Beebe's post about 
> Feather's vitriol) that Feather should actually acknowledge his 
> venom.)

  Leonard Feather didn't really acknowledge his poison pen years.  Art Hodes 
told me that he was on a Jazz Cruise that Feather was on and that Feather 
tried to act toward him as though none of that had ever happened.

  Jim Beebe