[Dixielandjazz] Art Hodes Lester Young

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

The last time I managed to publish anything academic and nothing to do with music 
I had a pretty well hysterical response from one young man demanding footnotes.
Where did these people say what I said they said? 
The implication being that perhaps they hadn't said it. 

So I am delighted more than Lindsay Meech could imagine by his citation of his
own hearing of Art Hodes say in person what I read long ago in an interview. 
I didn't name the dedicatee of Muggsy Spanier's FEATHER BRAIN BLUES,
doing what people who power small boats call "feathering my oars",
but of course Leonard F. was playing up to the mass media nonsense of coining 
stupid headlines about some latest thing and new thing. Lindsay's word "tainted" is 
bang on for the delusion fostered.
The only wholly musical Schism in jazz was George!  (old joke about George 
Chisholm, the first European but not merely European jazz hornman!)
Adapting a line from the late Stanley Eveling, greatest of all TV critics, 
about "the man who stands betweenthe public and the arts" 
(UK readers might guess who he meant) there it seems 
was Feather, a very gifted blues pianist it should be said, standing between 
jazz and a larger public. Rather than "only connect".

Anyone wishing to drum up anti-Feather feeling might refer to the lyrics he
wrote for Lips Page, who doubtless found them a huge joke, under titles 
such as "Just another Woman". They seem to me a little near the knuckle,
or the flat of the feminist hand delivered to the side of the male face.
Winceworthy words! Ouch! 

Robert R. Calder 

> Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:27:44 +1300
> From: Lindsay Meech <lindsay.meech2012 at gmail.com>
> With regards to Robert Calder's letter mentioning the aborted recording 
> session of Art Hodes and Lester Young -- I can repeat part of a conversation I 
>had with Art ...