The Turnaround

Pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams was the first person that Leonard Feather conducted a Blindfold Test with. The feature ran in the September, 1946 issue of Metronome magazine. Musicians that Williams heard include Barney Bigard, Dizzy Gillespie, James P. Johnson, Harry James, Nat King Cole, and Bennie Goodman. I dedicate an entire chapter of my in-progress book on the Blindfold Tests about Williams’s test and its musical and social significance beyond it just being the first Blindfold Test. She could a tough critic, saying about Jelly Roll Morton’s “Red Hot Pepper”: “What does it lack? Music! No stars.” In general, she said that she likes “almost all types of music, if they’re well played, except Dixieland. I don’t think Dixieland fans even know why they like it; they’re just following the crowd. . . . I think it’s a bad idea for kids or youngsters who are interested in music to pick up on Dixieland. . . . New ideas and good taste and execution—put them together and you have good music, whether it’s jazz or anything else. That’s the way I feel about music.” Here is a YouTube playlist of the thirteen tracks that Leonard Feather played for Williams.