The Best of B&A: Time’s Up Edition
Our Before & After listening sessions have always been big reader favorites; according to our surveys, B&A is consistently one of the first sections of the magazine read by subscribers. Leonard Feather developed its predecessor, the Blindfold Test, back in 1947 for Metronome magazine. The premise of the column was not so much to trick or embarrass musicians, but to show that jazz musicians were not primitives or idiot savants, a common notion during that time. Among his first subjects were Mary Lou Williams, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, and Dizzy Gillespie—and yes, he actually blindfolded them during the sessions. When Metronome folded, Leonard took the column to DownBeat. In 1989, he brought it over to JazzTimes (where he’d been a contributor since the mid-’70s), but adapted it to include the comments of the subject after learning the details and the selection. He renamed it Before & After, but the basic premise remained the same.
Leonard was truly a friend to JazzTimes beyond his regular contributions of features and reviews. In the days before emails, when copy would arrive by mail, Leonard would include a letter containing all kinds of requests, as well as a concise critique of the last issue. When I first came to JazzTimes in 1990, I remember being taken aback by his often blunt feedback, but I soon realized how lucky we were that he took the magazine so seriously. Indeed, it was Leonard who suggested that Ira Sabin change the publication’s name from Radio Free Jazz to JazzTimes back in 1979, and he was active at many of JazzTimes’ conventions. When Leonard died in 1994, the magazine and the jazz community lost one of its passionate supporters.
Leonard’s MO with Before & After was to elicit candid feedback from has continued Leonard’s legacy with a rotating cast of contributors such as Larry Appelbaum, Ashley Kahn, and David R. Adler.
