Some Other Greats in Jazz

Leonard Feather’s encomium to the artistry of Dizzy Gillespie paid high honor to a great jazz master. In one instance, though, Feather in his tribute stumbles into the trap of hyperbole, from which he may wish to extricate himself.

He writes that “by the time he reached the final decade of his life, Gillespie had become the most honored, the most respected, the most universally praised musician--not merely of the be-bop era of which he had long been a symbol, but in the entire history of jazz (italics mine).”

Really now! I submit that two other giants of jazz, by omission slighted by Feather’s hyperbole, most unequivocally merit the same praise--Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Furthermore, I contend that Feather, given his reputation as a jazz historian, can himself provide the documentation to support my statement.

STANLEY SLOME

Granada Hills