How reliable is the jazz press?

The other day I was checking out some jazz blogs when I came across an interesting entry, Subject(ive) to Criticism, on Chris Kelsey's excellent blog. He brings up the subject of integrity in jazz writing, and it started my head wheels rolling. How much are jazz writers influenced by their friendship with performers and others in the business? Do editors put pressure on their writers? You get the picture.

Although I submitted an article to a Copenhagen newspaper in the mid-Fifties, and they published it, I did not have any ambition to become a writer—that article, I thought, was a one-time experience. I wanted more than anything to be a radio presenter, as they were called in Europe. I wanted to play jazz records on the air and talk about them. As a teenager, I even rigged up something that looked like a microphone and pretended to be broadcasting, and when B&O came out with a wire recorder, I bought one on installment and continued my fantasies with a real microphone. Not long after that, I was able to trade my wire recorder in for the tape machine I mentioned in a previously post. That, as I will explain in a future post, proved to be my ticket to becoming a broadcaster—a dream come true.

To fast-forward, I had by 1959 become a disc jockey in Philadelphia http://stomp-off.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-find-racism-in-city-of-brotherly-love.html and that' is what led me to a writing career. One way for record promoters to get the attention of jazz dj's was to engage them as album annotators. Record companies and distributors were always pushing their product so it behooved them to befriend the dj. We were taken to lunch and dinner, given tickets to shows, etc. Eventually, money started changing hands, but I am happy to say that I never gave in to the payola temptation. Liner notes assignments were always good for airplay and I did get my share of them, but having disc jockeys write them was not always a good idea. I'm sure you have seen some of the clueless notes that are found on 1950s and 60s albums and written by guys who often knew little about the music beyond that which they had read on the backs of LPs, which, in turn, may well have been written by people who themselves hadn't a clue. The guys I worked with at WHAT were like that: amazingly uninformed, to put it kindly.

So, this is really where I began writing, and my notes were as dumb as anybody's. I knew more about the music, its history and players than my colleagues did, but my command of the English language was pathetic and I slipped all too readily into the "He was born in Pascagoula, of a musical family..." school of liner note writing. I truly cringe when I see some of my early attempts, so much so that I volunteered to rewrite notes gratis when I saw that labels were reducing the old ones to fine print and sticking them into CD "jewel boxes." My offers were never accepted, because that would entail the extra cost of resetting type. Never mind that these companies were reissuing material that had already paid for itself, the industry was becoming one in which the bottom line overshadowed any artistic considerations.

Churning out hopelessly ill-conceived notes cheated the consumer, but it gave me needed experience (not to mention $50 or $75 a pop). When Time-Life Records gave me $4,000 assignments, I realized that I had to start taking myself more seriously as a writer, revised thinking that Down Beat and, later, Saturday Review, also contributed to. I was working on my first book when Stereo Review offered me a monthly gig that lasted 28 years. I was contributing about 12 reviews plus features every month, so my writing was improving by default, but there is more to writing a good piece than having a way with words and knowing proper punctuation. I still don't know the rules of grammar, but I did develop my creative approach and break away from the shackles of that trite dj formula.

Getting back to integrity, I think most jazz writers, if not all, start out with that intact, but sometimes things happen along the way and even the best of writers find noble priorities slipping away from them. I won't mention his name, but I saw that happen to one of our most respected contemporary jazz scene observers. It became increasingly clear that his reviews were shaped by monetary interests and a career agenda—it did boost his career, but it also dented his reputation.

The late Orde Coombs did not write about jazz, but once told me that any writer must attract attention in order to succeed, even if it calls for sacrificing integrity. We had a long discussion about that, but I did not find his arguments compelling. Not long after that, we both found ourselves at a loft party where most of the guest were African-Americans (Orde was from the Caribbean) and many were of a light complexion. This was the late 60s, a time when black power and radical chic often were subjects of cocktail conversation, and dashikis were political statements. Gesturing with his eyes and a tilt of his head towards a group of light-skinned, afro'ed guests, who were having a heated discussion about Black Muslims, Orde winked at me and said: "Mulatto power."

The thought obviously stayed with him, for he soon had a cover story with that title in New York magazine. I read it, of course, and saw how he had turned a perfectly innocuous cocktail sip into a radical conspiracy. He later wrote a piece for the NY Times in which he spoke of a rise in black street crime and advocated the establishment of remotely located camps to which these young criminals could be sent. Not surprisingly, both articles brought Orde into the spotlight and even garnered him a TV talk show. Mission accomplished, but not for long. Orde died at the age of 45.

Leonard Feather was someone I looked up to when I lived in Europe and my admiration continued during my first years in the U.S. Lured by a passion for jazz, Leonard had arrived in the U.S. when the music was hot and Harlem—as young Duke Ellington put it—was like Arabian nights. Struggling at first, he soon became a part of the inner circle and worked hard to built up a good reputation, to the point where his was a household name and some called him the "Dean of Jazz". I believed that, but as I myself ceased to be on the outside, looking in, my vision sharpened and I began to notice how Leonard manipulated things. A few examples of the sort of thing that made me see him in a new light:

Camden, a budget-priced RCA subsidiary label, asked him to produce a blues reissue, which—considering the wealth of blues material found on the company's Bluebird label—should have been a dream assignment. But Leonard's focus was not on the Bluebird treasures, it was on his own work, for many of the tracks he selected were either produced by him or had him credited as composer. Next I saw Columbia reissue a critic's choice compilation for which some of the top jazz writers each had picked a plumb from the past, and all but one was a classic performance. The odd track was Leonard's choice, a selection from his own gimmick-ridden "One World Jazz" album! Now I was really getting the picture and understanding how Leonard Feather had achieved such prominence and why he was the only jazz critic with a house and swimming pool in Beverly Hills: the man was an unscrupulous self-promoter.

I could cite other instances of Leonard's warped priorities, but the following letter exchange says it all, I think. It came about when Verve asked me to compile and annotate a 2-CD set of Dinah Washington material. The result was an album released in 1993, and my notes made Leonard fuming mad. It wasn't something I said, it was what I didn't say:

Here is my response to Leonard, dated July 19, 1993:

Dear Leonard,

If my Dinah Washington notes “Utterly amazed” you, imagine bow I felt when I read the extraordinary letter with which you responded to them. My notes, you say, have “so many errors” that you “hardly know where to start.” Well, you obviously did figure out where to start and, not surprisingly, chose Leonard Feather--or shall we say the absence of Leonard Feather. Dear me, you are a little man to be so preoccupied with your trifling self. Methinks you overestimate your own importance in the scheme of things, but you can give your paranoia a rest, because the omission was not deliberate--I was writing about Dinah Washington, a lady whose artistry I have long admired, I saw no reason to bring you into my notes. As you know, I have had close, long-term personal relationships with a number of jazz artists, and even played a small role in their careers, but I certainly don’t expect to be mentioned whenever they are written about. Your over-reaction to my notes is both unwarranted and silly, and you can rest assured that while you may find the omission “glaringly obvious,” the record-buying public will neither notice the absence of your name nor give a tinker's dam.


You make far too much of the songs for which you have taken composer’s credit, but let’s face it, Leonard, Dinah Washington’s talent is what made them worth repeating, not the tunes, which are run-of-the-mill blues with pedestrian lyrics; and it is because Dinah sang Evil Gal and turned it into a hit that others--Aretha, Helen Humes, et al--have made recordings of it. So far, at least, no one has seen fit to record “The Leonard Feather Song Book,” and I wouldn’t bold my breath.


As for your other complaints, you cite several “errors” in my notes, but I think you had better take a refresher course in jazz history, for you happen to be wrong on all counts:



• That Dinah recorded a few Decca sides with Hampton is not a “misstatement.” She recorded Million Dollar Smile on October 16, 1944 (Decca 18719), Evil Gal Blues on April 15, 1945 (Decca DL 8088), and Blow Top Blues on May 21, 1945 (Decca 23792). The Evil Gal performance is taken from the Carnegie Hall concert to which you refer, but it was released on Decca. So, if three sides is something less than “a few,” I stand corrected, but I don’t think so.

• Dinah was indeed appearing at places like Kelly’s Stable by 1945, or are the owners of these establishments guilty of false advertising?

• Perhaps you weren’t paying attention, but Lionel Hampton played both drums and (two-fingered) piano on some of the Keynote sides.



Your conclusion that I must be “lying” (an odd choice of words), because I resent any role you might have played in Dinah’s career, is as laughable as it is revealing. What an ego you have! Do you really think that you are to be so envied that I--or, for that matter, anyone else--would distort facts and cast integrity to the wind as a punishment? How could I possibly envy you? A man so without principle, so consumed by greed and self-aggrandizement, is to be pitied rather than envied. No, Leonard, if such were my wont, I could not hope to do as good a job of bringing you down as you yourself have done over the years. You may have spent a lifetime successfully establishing your name, but you have failed to give it meaning.



No, you did not write anything about me at which I took offense. On the contrary, you overwhelmed me with your high praise for my Bessie Smith biography. Only later did I realize that you were simply playing politics and trying to get Sol Stein to publish one of your books.


So you see, the content of my Dinah Washington notes was not dictated by any underlying, vengeful motive--it may surprise you to learn that many of us don’t operate in that manner. Perhaps you failed to notice that I also selected the tracks for the album, including the ones in which you have a vested interest. Were I all that envious and mean-spirited, I rather think that I might have omitted them altogether.


You end your letter by saying that you don’t expect a truthful answer from me, so I shall end mine with a relevant Shavian observation: “The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.”


Sincerely,

Chris Albertson