Feather first published Inside Be-bop in 1949, when there was a lot of hostility to the new music called “bop.” In the 1977 reissue of his book, published under the title Inside Jazz, Feather explains that a few months after the book’s publication, Birdland, a new jazz club opened. “It was the end of the decade (December 1949) and the beginning of a new era for modern jazz in nightclubs.” Feather’s analyses of the music and the players are particularly cogent because he was on the scene at the time and was one of the new music’s most ardent champions. His book traces the origins of bebop and its early practitioners and also includes in depth analyses of particular compositions.

British expatriate Leonard Feather has been a jazz composer and critic since the early 1930s. He has contributed to numerous magazines, hosted a television program, taught, and lectured. He is best known for his two reference works on jazz, Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties and Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies, co-authored with Ira Gitler.