Morey Feld

Swing jazz audiences enjoyed the work of this drummer during several different periods of clarinet great Benny Goodman's career. As an elder statesman, Morey Feld was associated with several different George Wein festivals and touring projects. Eventually Feld pitched his tent in the mile-high city of Denver, Colorado and became an important spokesman for jazz among the cowboy hats. He came out of the midwest and its fertile breeding ground of bands in the '30s, playing with Ben Pollack, Joe Haymes and others. He first began playing with Goodman near the end of 1944. The initial period with Goodman lasted a bit more than a year, followed by the beginning of another of the drummer's important relationships, this one with Eddie Condon. Condon would soon crank open his own venue in New York City, dedicated to styles of jazz that were being left behind. As might be expected, the move provided employment for drummers who played these styles with authority. As the '40s progressed, Feld revealed his mastery of various feels in the band of Buddy Morrow, behind many a guest at the Condon club and on a string of often uncredited free-lance recording sessions. Goodman brought him back in the '50s, a decade when the drummer also held forth with Billy Butterfield, Joe Bushkin, Bobby Hackett and Peanuts Hucko. From 1955 the drummer was on staff as an ABC session player, emerging a bit more into the spotlight in the '60s when he began leading his own group. Feld's trio was well received at the 1964 New York World's Fair but his leadership activities did not prevent him from continuing the relationships with both Condon and Goodman. While working with the latter artist in 1966, Feld opened his own school of drumming. He toured all over the world with George Wein's Newport All Stars, then began trying out new environs. In 1968 he moved to California but skipped over the mountains shortly thereafter and settled in Denver. By 1969 he was well established with a band Hucko was leading out of Denver, and was also playing in a group that casually referred to itself as The World's Greatest Jazz Band. He died trying to save his home from being destroyed in a fire. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi