George, Lynell - Los Angeles Times (Oct. 06, 2003) - Jazz Bassist Goes with the Changes
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Jennifer was the Cover Story of a feature article by Lynell George on the front page of the L.A. Times Calendar section Sunday August 31, 2003.
The following is an edited version that appeared in the Kansas City Star and other newspapers across the USA
Posted on Mon, Oct. 06, 2003
LOS ANGELES - One day not too long ago, jazz bassist John Leitham disappeared.
The void he left filled with rumors.
Trombonist Bill Watrous caught wind of one while picking up a few things at his neighborhood supermarket. A photographer he knew fairly well from the L.A. jazz circuit stopped him. "So did you hear about John Leitham?" went the pitch. "Well, he's not exactly John..."
By the time Leitham resurfaced -- no longer John, now Jennifer -- those in the jazz world who weren't speechless were filling dead and/or jittery air with jokes and creaky one-liners.
"People were shocked...It's not something you deal with every day," said longtime friend, guitarist Jimmy Bruno. "There were the typical kind of jokes. `You don't play bad for a broad.' " Or, from Watrous' arsenal: "Hey, John! Why did you wait so long? You're almost past your prime."
Although it all makes Leitham wince, the 50-year-old musician knew to expect it.
"It's just the way we deal with things. Musicians," she says with a shrug.
As Leitham sees it, she's jumped out of the boys' club and into the fire. "I gave away my membership," she says. "No question about that."
Leitham built her skills with some of the best: Woody Herman, Mel Torme, George Shearing, Peggy Lee, Doc Severinsen. And over time she's garnered props from peers and enthusiastic critical praise. The crowning glory: being dubbed "the left-handed virtuoso of the upright bass" by the late Los Angeles Times jazz critic Leonard Feather.
Jazz is about spontaneity and freedom. In these post-transition months, connecting with that sense of abandon has become a sort of mantra for Leitham, who finds herself constantly improvising -- thinking fast in ways she hadn't had to before.
Sometimes, post-set, when fans are clustered around Leitham, asking for autographs, peppering her with tech talk, she'll get that question.
Do you have a brother who plays bass?
"Sometimes," Leitham says, "I tell them we share the same DNA. That's all I say."
It's one of the many retorts she's been cultivating since officially transitioning in November 2001 (her sexual-reassignment surgery was performed in July 2002).
"All the men I've worked with who knew me before the transition sort of view me more as an oddity than as a woman," Leitham says. "For those who didn't know me as well, the tendency is not to deal with me at all."
Even close friends are sorting through their reactions, people such as Bruno, who's known Leitham since they were teen-agers.
"I had no idea this was going on. John, I mean -- I have a hard time calling her Jennifer -- I won't say that he was the most macho guy. But he was really determined, really stubborn. Still is. Things have to be perfect. But I never suspected anything like that."
Leithmam, whose story was told in the Learning Channel documentary "Sex Change," said she always felt like she was "in the wrong group" while growing up in Philadelphia. Now she's still figuring out the cues and nuances of what it is to be a woman in a man's world.
"(The guys) won't listen to me in a conversation like they used to," she said. "If I'm making a point at a rehearsal, trying to bring up a musical point, I get shouted down more often than not. ... It's as though my opinion isn't worth what it was before."
The complete version of this article is available at :
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