Feather was born in
London, England, into an 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 the age of twenty-one, Feather made his first visit to the United States, and after working in the UK and the US 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. Leonard Feather's
Swing Time, which was first broadcast National Service in January 1937, probably derived its programme title from the
1936 American RKO musical film, songs from which were featured in
BBC gramophone recitals several times in December 1936. Initially trailed in the
Radio Times as a programme of "Gramophone Records of Dance Music (Swing Time)". He also wrote the regular "Tempo di Jazz" column in the
Radio Times in the mid-1930s. 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?", co-written with his wife Jane, recorded by blues artists
Louis Jordan and
B. B. King. Even jazz enthusiasts who did not read his books and articles would have known him from the
liner notes that he wrote for hundreds of jazz albums. He was not always a neutral commentator on the jazz scene: "Feather's skill at writing glowing advance press pieces about artists he was to record, including his own compositions on the session, and then reviewing his own productions as if he were an impartial critic, was almost an art form in itself." He also hosted radio shows including
Jazz Club in the early 1950s and
Platterbrains that aired from 1953 to 1958. Feather organized the first
Carnegie Hall jazz concerts, the only two jazz concerts at the original
Metropolitan Opera House. He wrote the lyrics to the
Benny Golson jazz song "
Whisper Not", which was recorded by
Ella Fitzgerald on her 1966
Verve release of the same name. Feather's archives are part of the International Jazz Collections at the
University of Idaho Library. Feather died from complications of
pneumonia in
Encino, Los Angeles, California, at the age of 80. He is the father of lyricist and songwriter
Lorraine Feather. ==Bibliography==