Leonard Feather

Composer, songwriter, author, conductor, lecturer and arranger, educated in preparatory school and a student of Leslie Taylor, Lennie Tristano, and Jimmy Hamilton. He authored several magazine articles and wrote a syndicated jazz column. He also conducted several Esquire Magazine jazz polls and produced and directed Esquire Jazz Concerts between 1944 and 1947. He organized the first Carnegie Hall jazz concerts, and the only two jazz concerts at the original Metropolitan Opera House. He was the jazz editor for Playboy Magazine from 1956, and directed the first Playboy jazz festival in 1959. His network radio show "Platterbrains" aired between 1953 and 1958, and he also produced the radio series "Jazz Club, USA". He also served as a consultant to the NBC educational series "The Subject Is Jazz" in 1958., and he composed special material for Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Frankie Laine, Pearl Bailey and Dinah Shore. Joining ASCAP in 1945, his chief musical collaborators included Andy Razaf, Dor