Siddhesh Joshi (Editor)

Leonard Feather

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Origin
  
London, England

Name
  
Leonard Feather

Genres
  
Jazz

Role
  
Jazz Pianist

Children
  
Lorraine Feather

Instruments
  
Piano




Birth name
  
Leonard Geoffrey Feather

Born
  
13 September 1914 (
1914-09-13
)

Died
  
September 22, 1994, Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, United States

Albums
  
Express Yourself, Nat King Cole With Leonard Feather

Awards
  
Grammy Award for Best Album Notes

Books
  
The encyclopedia of jazz, The biographical encyclop, Inside Jazz, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in, The jazz years

Similar People
  
Ira Gitler, Lorraine Feather, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Red Norvo

Occupation(s)
  
JournalistComposer

Jazz whisper not by benny golson and leonard feather 1967


Leonard Geoffrey Feather (13 September 1914 – 22 September 1994) was a British-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer who was best known for his music journalism and other writing.

Contents

Leonard Feather Leonard Feather Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

I REMEMBER BIRD - Jazz guitar & piano cover ( Leonard Feather )


Biography

Leonard Feather wwwijcuidahoeduimagesIJCLFeathercoll0201jpg

Feather was born in London into a strictly conformist upper middle-class Jewish family. He learned to play the piano and clarinet without formal training and started writing about jazz and film by his late teens. At age of twenty-one, Feather made his first visit to the United States, and after working in the U.K. and the U.S. as a record producer finally settled in New York City in 1939, where he lived until moving to Los Angeles in 1960. Feather was co-editor of Metronome magazine and served as chief jazz critic for the Los Angeles Times until his death.

Feather's compositions have been widely recorded, including "Evil Gal Blues" and "Blowtop Blues" by Dinah Washington, and what is possibly his biggest hit, "How Blue Can You Get?" by blues artists Louis Jordan and B. B. King. But it was as a writer on jazz (as a journalist, critic, historian, and campaigner) that he made his biggest mark: "Feather was for a long time the most widely read and most influential writer on jazz." Even jazz enthusiasts who didn't read his books and articles would have known him from the liner notes that he wrote for hundreds of jazz albums.

He wrote the lyrics to the jazz song "Whisper Not", which were recorded by Ella Fitzgerald on her 1966 Verve release of the same name.

Feather's archives are held by the University of Idaho Library's Special Collections & Archives department as part of the International Jazz Collections.

Feather died in Sherman Oaks, California, nine days after his 80th birthday. He was the father of lyricist and songwriter Lorraine Feather.

Discography

  • 1937–1945: Leonard Feather 1937–1945 (Classics)
  • 1951: Leonard Feather's Swingin' Swedes (Prestige)
  • 1954: Dixieland vs. Birdland (MGM)
  • 1954: Cats Vs. Chicks (MGM)
  • 1954: Winter Sequence (MGM)
  • 1956: West Coast vs. East Coast (MGM)
  • 1956: Swingin' on the Vibories (MGM)
  • 1957: Hi-Fi Suite (MGM)
  • 1957: 52nd Street (VSOP)
  • 1958: Swingin' Seasons (MGM)
  • 1959: Jazz from Two Sides (Concept)
  • 1971: Night Blooming Jazzmen featuring Kittie Doswell (Mainstream)
  • 1971: Freedom Jazz Dance (Mainstream)
  • 1971–1972: Night Blooming (Mainstream)
  • 1972: All-Stars (Mainstream)
  • 1997: Presents Bop (Tofrec)
  • With Langston Hughes

  • Weary Blues (MGM, 1959)
  • References

    Leonard Feather Wikipedia