[Dixielandjazz] Leonard Feather Blindfold Tests

Stephen G Barbone barbonestreet at earthlink.net
Thu Jul 14 20:41:23 PDT 2011


Since Joe and I are talking about Leonard Feather and his blindfold  
tests, I thought list mates might be interested in an article that the  
late Jim Beebe wrote about Mr. Feather. I believe it was posted on the  
DJML several years ago when Jim, after some encouragement from me and  
other list mates at that time started to post about his experiences.  
His posting was titled The Truth About Leonard Feather. I couldn't  
find it in the DJML archives, but did find it here:

http://leeharrismusic.net/leonard_feather.htm

PLEASE NOTE: The last few paragraphs about how Jim Beebe says Feather  
used the blindfold tests to put down Dixieland Musicians. And how he  
got Teagarden to put down fellow trombonist Bill Harris. (Who BTW was  
an excellent musician) If you read between the lines, who was Feather  
trying to put down Bill Harris, or Jack Teagarden?

Regarding Teagarden and Ellington. On that blindfold test, was he  
trying to make "T" look stupid? I think that he may very well have had  
that as an agenda.

That's why I would like to see the Teagarden Blindfold test in its  
entirety. Does anyone have the site for it? I found the Mary Lou  
Williams test where she puts down Jelly Roll Morton on the Feather  
site, but cannot find the Teagarden test.

Also, for those who didn't know Jim Beebe, damn, I still miss him. We  
went at it a few times, but became great internet friends and he  
helped me greatly in getting a musician friend of mine here in  
Philadelphia away from the Scientology Cult.

This article and others he contributed to the DJML are very important  
to the understanding of jazz and jazz critics.

Cheers,.
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband







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