I am currently writing a book about the history of the Blindfold Tests in Downbeat magazine, tentatively titled “A New Jazz History in 1,188 Blindfold Tests.” My book is a critical examination of the Blindfold Tests in which I outline the history of the tests from their origin in the 1940s to the present day and trace how they have shaped the way we listen to and think and talk about jazz. I show how the tests intersect with issues related to musical style and subgenre, race, gender, and other meaty topics. The tests not only reflect ideas about music and society (can you hear the difference between a black and a white musician or between a man or woman?), they reinforced and challenged these ideas in many ways. And of course, I go deep into Miles Davis’s notorious Blindfold Tests.
Much of the book is based on my research in the personal papers of the test’s creator, the legendary jazz critic Leonard Feather. In addition to the extensive archival work, the book draws on dozens of interviews with musicians ranging from Sonny Rollins, Randy Brecker, and James Carter to Mary Halvorson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Vijay Iyer. In these interviews, the artists bring to life their experiences taking the Blindfold Test and speak to the Tests’ importance to them as musicians and to jazz in general. I also interviewed current and former Downbeat editors and writers such as Dan Morgernstern, Gene Lees, Art Lange, Ted Panken, and others. “Jazz Blindfolded, Jazz Revealed” will be an insightful book for anybody who has ever picked up an issue of Downbeat and immediately flipped to the inside back cover to read the magazine’s most popular, entertaining, informative and enduring features.
This page is currently in a state of evolution, and will grow as I post more materials that are resources I created when researching and writing the book, links, nuggets that are related to but probably won’t make the book itself, supplementary and multimedia materials, and other deep cuts.
Blindfold Test Lists
Blindfold Test YouTube Playlist links
The Turnaround 