Jazz Information Magazine On Line

Everything about the swinging music we love to DJ

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Eyeball
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Jazz Information Magazine On Line

#1 Post by Eyeball » Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:20 am

A collector has listed a great deal of the contents of the legendary magazine Jazz Information. He has all of Volume One on line except, it seems, for issue number One. He does not seem to have any of Volume Two.

The links on a handful of the later issues on line lead you to incorrectly typed dates and issues. The dates and issue numbers duplicate earlier issues, but the contents are totally different. He simply erred when typing in the issue and dates at the top of the page.

This is scarce stuff - jazz writing at the time that jazz and swing were actually being made!


http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz12.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz13.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz14.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz15.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz16.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz17.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz18.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz19.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz20.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz21.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz23.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz24.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz25.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz26.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz27.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz28.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz29.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz30.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz31.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz32.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz33.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz34.html
http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jazz35.html

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GemZombie
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#2 Post by GemZombie » Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:31 am

Thanks John, this is some great stuff.

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Eyeball
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#3 Post by Eyeball » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:33 am

You're welcome.

Yeah...it really is.

I don;t know if it ALL can be taken for gospel, but those guys were right oin top of things and they lived and died for swing and jazz..

Here is their long summation of JI and it origins and history from their final issue -
http://home.att.net/%7Ejoeshepherd/jazz/jihist.html

EDITORIAL

[JAZZ INFORMATION ceased publication with it's November, 1941 issue. This swan song issue was 104 pages. This is the editorial from that issue. Editor and Publisher for this issue is Eugene Williams [JS]

A HISTORY OF JAZZ INFORMATION

EDITOR'S NOTE

During J.I.'s life, we were usually reticent about ourselves and our various difficulties. The following is published for the benefit or those readers who may be curious about the "inside" story of J.I.

JAZZ INFORMATION was born in the same week as the second world war. The first number was written, mimeographed and mailed late one night in the backroom of the 52nd Street Commodore Music Shop. The date was September 8, 1939.

Typing stencils, addressing envelopes and rolling the hand mimeograph all night were the four people who founded J.I.: three former Columbia College students, Ralph Gleason, Ralph Toledano and Eugene Williams, and one small blonde (Gleason warned he'd seen her first), Jean Rayburn. Toledano and Williams had shared the Columbia Jester's jazz column for several years, while Gleason had reviewed records for the Columbia spectator.

We had been cooking up the idea of a hot jazz magazine for a long time. What we wanted most was to produce a monthly or even quarterly review, something like Panassie's Jazz Hot but American in language, attitude and direction, as a jazz magazine should be. It's strange, now, to think that one of the titles proposed was Swing Music.

After examining our pockets and discussing the project with Milt Gabler (whose finger was on the public pulse) the young editors (average age 22) had given up these ambitious plans for the time being. Instead, we decided in favor of a weekly newsletter, which could provide the advantages of late news and up-to-date record reviews together with low cost and simple production.

From this, we thought, a more impressive format might grow if public interest were strong enough. The name JAZZ INFORMATION was suggested by Milt Gabler, who also let the J.I. quartet use his office, mimeograph and (most important) his mailing list, freely.

There was no advance publicity; as one in the jazz field had ever heard of any member of the new organization. But, we reasoned, no one already known as a jazz writer seemed ready to take on a job like this; and it ought to be done. If J.I. began well and grew better, support would be forthcoming. And so., with only Milt Gabler's encouragement and a few pats on the back from other people, the plan was concluded and the first issue of JAZZ INFORMATION whipped together overnight at the Commodore.

When Ruthie Gordon came in, the next day, to open the shop for business, almost a thousand copies were being piled into the Gleason Dodge. They were dumped at the Radio City post office, and a few extra copies given to local record shops for free distribution. JAZZ INFORMATION was launched; and with a total investment of about thirty dollars.

The first number (now rare and something of a collectors' item) was only a faint promise of what J.I. was to become. Four sheets, printed on one side only, featured news stories on Columbia's reissue plans, Stacy's move to the Crosby band, Hawkins' first American plans, the new United States Record Corp., and so forth. There was a brief record column, a "Bandwagon" department of spot news, and our first collectors' notes with an item on the up-and-coming Solo Art label and a plug for Art Hodes, whom we'd heard playing in a Staten Island joint on Dan Qualey's recommendation.

"Our Own Jelly-Roll Department", first of a short-lived series, pointed out the greater accuracy of J.I.'s news so effectively (as we learned later) that the offended editors of Down Beat closed their columns to all J.I. publicity for some time. A front page editorial, introducing the magazine to its future subscribers, said: "JAZZ INFORMATION is not designed to compete with any existing trade papers or jitterbug sheets. It will be devoted exclusively to the weekly coverage or the latest news and records. in the hot jazz field, supplemented from time to time by short historical and critical articles on the subject....

"We feel that JAZZ INFORMATION fulfills a unique and important function in American jazz music. Being a non-commercial venture, the continuance of JAZZ INFORMATION depends entirely on what support it receives from those whose interest in jazz goes beyond Tin Pan Alley and the sensationalism of the swing fad. We believe that there are enough such people to keep us alive."

Our purpose in beginning JAZZ INFORMATION could be defined as simply as that: to publish what American hot fans wanted, a hot jazz magazine, and to give it a dignified and rigorously non-commercial approach. Reorientations of this policy came later, as we learned more about what J.I.'s readers wanted, and what we wanted to give them. But that was the cornerstone: an American jazz magazine with self-respect, accuracy and intelligence.

With the first issue safely in the mails, we rushed down to 505 Fifth Avenue to rent a mailing privilege at the address we'd already chosen. Then we went to sleep. The next morning, the answers began to roll in.

And they kept rolling, so enthusiastically that for the first year J.I. required only a few dollars more than we'd originally invested. We got our first subscriptions, in fact, the night Vol. I, No. 1 went to press, when Dan Qualey and some of his friends ("Stalebread" Stiber and George Kaplan) stopped on the way to a Ross Tavern session to drop 25-cent pieces through the Commodore's transom. The first few issues were sent out to a large mailing list, and soon an adequate backlog of subscriptions had been built up.

Subscriptions came from all over the United States; later, from Canada, South America, Europe, South Africa, Japan. Obtaining the tentative cooperation of the Hot Record Society, we sent out circulars on their mailing list, on a commission basis. Ads were inserted in Down Beat and Tempo; hot fans passed the word along. One by one we found music stores to sell J.I. in New York, Philadelphia, Cambridge, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston. Cleveland and other cities.A shipment of every issue went to London.

Meanwhile, editorial conferences were being held and the work of the magazine done, in various places and at odd hours. One of the editors (Williams) was working regularly on a commercial magazine ; another (Toledano) was free-lancing. Gleason lived in Westchester and had to drive in to New York. The work was done alternately at Williams' home and Toledano's.

At a heated session in the Shanty at Sixth Avenue and 52nd, it was decided that the response to J.I.'s first issue justified an immediate change of format. Mimeographing was too difficult, the resulting paper too messy. So No. 2 was published September 19 as a four-page leaflet printed by photo-offset. J.I. was already more than a newsletter; it was becoming a magazine, end grew steadily in that direction as the editors mastered photo-offset technique.

Production of the magazine from then on entailed writing the copy, retyping it twice to justify the margins, laying it out on large dummy sheets and taking it to the printers. When the copies were ready we picked them up from the printer, folded the 11 x 17 sheets by hand, inserted them in hand-addressed envelopes and packages, and carted them off to the post office. Headlines for the lead stories were pasted together, letter by letter, from the New York Post's boldface subheads. (Later, for a while, we got someone to handletter them, which was easier but looked worse.) Toledano and Williams shared the record column at first, while Gleason was in charge of the news department; Williams wrote the collectors' column and Rayburn (then listed as Circulation Manager) handled subscriptions and book-keeping. Everyone took a hand in the unpleasant chores of typing copy, addressing and mailing

So it went for the next few issues while we struggled to keep our weekly schedule, usually staying up all night to take the finished dummy to the printers early in the morning. (we never got over this bad habit, and often worked fiercely all night only to find there was too much left to be lone.) After six issues, the present editor had to give up his regular job. From then on, J.I. was a fulltime business, first for three people, then for two and (in the end) for one.

Two conclusions were soon evident. First, no authentic hot jazz magazine could expect big profits; consequently It was not only more honest, but more intelligent to follow our own inclination toward a straightforward ("dogmatic") policy, rather than try appeasing everyone by indiscriminate attention to all phases of "jazz". We didn't lack advisors, of course, to recommend a policy at treading softly and offending no one. Later events proved we wore right in ignoring them; for a magazine similar to J.I., but an indeterminate policy and know-nothing record reviews, could not succeed.

Second, genuine and tasteful interest in real hot jazz was approaching a point where it might support a non-commercial publication; and the younger collectors, eager for education, absorbed each issue and asked for more. But it was impossible to obtain more than a limited amount of advertising, and the magazine had to be supported by subscriptions. Our hopes of obtaining some recompense for our work proved vain, and during the two years of J.I. the only money paid out was for outside stenographic help.

It was over questions of policy as well as the division of labor that our first editorial disagreement occurred. The resu1t was that Ralph Toledano departed from the magazine with the sixth issue. Two weeks later his name went off the masthead and in December Jean Rayburn, who had been assuming more and more of the magazine's responsibilities, was listed with Gleason and Williams as co-editor. But the original, informal partnership was not dissolved until. an arbitrator's decision, in the spring of 1940, awarded Toledano $10.75 (the amount of his original investment in J.I.) in full settlement of his claim.

The new magazine continued to scoop the music trade papers on news, record reviews and collectors' dope. New subscriptions kept coming in; the press run, which had been reduced from an initial 1500 to 800, was advanced to 1000 again. Number 9, published November 7,1939, was our first eight. page issue. After that, we published eight-page J.Is whenever the copy, advertising and finances warranted. Larger numbers made room for articles, too. Wally Schaap wrote several articles on Jazzmen Abroad; a Philadelphia collector contributed an anonymous piece on Rod Cless; Frank and Marshall Davis sent a long letter from Chicago; Walter Sidney wrote his first had on hot music, From Bach to Jazz.

The first serious setback came in December, four months after J.I.had begun. For family reasons, Gleason was unable to go on commuting between New York and Westchester. . That meant that Rayburn, who lived nearby and drove in with him, had to quit too. It was up to the present editor to give up the magazine or to continue alone with whatever help he could find. He decided to continue. The January 5 issue listed him, therefore, as Editor; while the. two retired partners, who hoped to come back to the magazine later, were kept on as associates..

The next few months were incredibly hectic. Just as its scope and difficulties were increasing, J.I. had become a one-man job. Getting the news and ad copy, running around town, doing all the production and circulation work with only some occasional family assistance, the editor had to work night and day to keep the. paper going.

The issues began to .appear less regularly, at the same time that they were growing bigger and better. J.I. was finally mentioned, though not by name, in Down Beat; and replied at too great length, perhaps. to a scurrilous attack. John 0'Hara's silly pronouncements on jazz were censured by Ed Morrow. Orin Blackstone sent a piece on "Kid" Rena from New Orleans. An oldtime Chicago collector contributed a piece on Rosy McHargue, under a pseudonym. Louis Harap turned in an interesting article on Boogie Woogie and the Player Piano.

In the semi-anniversary issue we had our first piece by William Russell, on Zue Robertson; a new department wee introduced, the Safety Valve, in which prominent collectors were asked to blow their top and usually did. This issue included, too, the first of four instalments of Bill Love's Original Labels classification. This feature, which was jumped on then and afterwards by J..I.'s enemies, was fairly expensive to run. But the label photostats looked pretty, and we found out just how many collectors were interested in labels (we weren't, ourselves) by the steady demand for these back numbers.

George Frazier contributed a slangy blast whose language embroiled us with the Philadelphia Hot Club; more Safety Valves came in, record reviews and collectors' columns wore lengthened. Music news from Chicago, which had first been handled by Donel O'Brien, was now contributed by John Steiner. And the editor was saved much of the tedious work of gathering New York news by the steadfast loyalty of Herman Rosenberg (of whom more later).

Then came another blow. In February the support of the H.R.S. (which, we acknowledge willingly, had been very useful whatever we thought of the spirit it was offered in) was abruptly withdrawn and replaced by bitter antagonism. This was regrettable, not so much because a smear campaign could damage J.I., but because J.I. had always wanted and tried to present a complete, unbiased picture of the jazz field. Perhaps the less said a-bout this disgraceful episode the better; but for the record, it should be said that Steve Smith's personal feud against J.I. was begun and sustained by Smith against our wishes, and in spite of our attempts to prevent it.

Not that it did us any appreciable harm. On the contrary, we found that to many, it seemed a distinction to be on the H.R.S. "purge list". Smith's unrelenting opposition to everything J.I. did was often an inspiration to us to work harder and longer. True, we did find it impossible to give the H.R.S. much publicity without their cooperation; but that didn't matter so much when that organization was plainly turning from hot jazz to more lucrative activities.

Meanwhile, overwork and loss of sleep were hanging over the editor's head. Irregularity of publication increased, the circulation curve was leveling off, and there was no time even to consider the important changes which the magazine was ready to undergo. When it was impossible to do any more an editorial in the issue of June 14, 1940 (Volume One, Number 35) announced a short suspension of publication. When that issue had been mailed, Williams went to visit Gleason in the country for several weeks, uncertain whether J.I. would reorganize or fold up completely.

* * *

One thing was evident: the weekly J.I. could not go on. During the next month we considered the advantages of fortnightly or even monthly publication, and finally chose a fortnightly schedule. A digest format, half the old size, would permit more attractive make-up; and the copies could be mailed just as they came from the binders, with no folding necessary. The contents of one of the eight-page weeklies could be more effectively displayed on sixteen smaller pages. Photographs and decorations could be used better.

The price was to be raised from 10 cents a copy while the annual remained $3.00. Increased advertising end circulation, we hoped, would help pay the printing bills. In resuming publication, our chances were much better than they had been a year before; we had experience, confidence and many faithful friends and readers.

Feeling more hopeful, the editor went back to New York to start work on Volume Two, Number One. Gleason quit a job he'd held all spring to come in and help again as full-time Associate Editor. Rayburn arrived too, and went to work revising the subscription files and typing reproduction copy, until she found a paying job elsewhere. A secondhand addressograph and a third-class mailing permit were acquired. Tired of cutting up the post we got a few draftsmen's lettering stencils; when these proved inadequate we took up the Fototype system which has been used successfully ever since.

On July 26, 1940, the first issue in the new format appeared. It had 36 pages of which 5 were advertisements. Besides the usual news, reviews, collectors' column and other departments, there was room for articles. George Hoefer of Down Beat had written a Safety Valve, and there was a biography of Omer Simeon (first in the New Orleans Clarinets series) by the editor and Herman Rosenberg.

We'd first met Herman at the H.R.S. shop. That was before he had been publicized in the trade press as "the terrific little guy who knows everything before it happens." At first, Herman later told us, he didn't think we were the right guys to put out a good jazz magazine. But he took to us soon, and through J.I.' s two years of publication he has been one of our most loyal (and useful) friends. We, on our part, thought Herman quite a remarkable character, and still do. There's a lot more we'd like to be able to tell you about.

Herman helped J.I. in countless important ways, just because he liked the magazine. He'd begun with news, sometimes phoning in tips from Nick's or the Cafe at three in the morning. When the staff had shrunk to one, Herman stepped into the breach and kept us supplied with all sorts of local and national news during the last months of Volume One. Now he began to hunt up historical material, facts, stories, photographs galore. It was Herman who looked up Omer Simeon, in town with Hines' band, and arranged an interview. After that he worked with us on many stories, and got some good ones on his own.

The July number, like J.I.'s first issue was sent out and advertised freely; and again, the results were rewarding. But the printer's bill was staggering. The increased costs began to run up a deficit which, since then, has wavered between three and five hundred dollars. J.I. had no "angel" except the editor himself, who paid bills and expenses out of his own pocket when the treasury ran low. These small expenditures piled up to a sizeable investment in the magazine.

We soon found that our ideas for Volume Two were pretty ambitious even for a two-man staff. Once more, overwork and deadline nerves made us jittery and strained. But we went on improving the magazine. The first four covers were plain, practical designs. Then we got our friend Ed Rice, a former Columbia Jester editor, to draw some covers. (His trumpet player, for No. 5, was the best.) In November we changed to photographic covers, using the work of Charles Peterson, Otto Hess and our friend Occy Romaine. For the Christmas issue, we reproduced Charles Delauney's sensitive and unusual drawing of Louis; once we got an impressionistic sketch from Bill Martin.

By November, we'd changed the news presentation from newspaper to magazine style. We'd expanded the old departments and added an important new one: Robert Quinlisk's column on Jazz Classics .

Perhaps it may be admitted, now, that this department (which took such a long time to reach its stride) was written by the editor. He took on the job, though already overloaded with work, because we thought it was very much worth doing and no one else could be found to do it. At first the Quinlisk column was the last, most hastily written and worst part of each issue; a successful but probably ill-advised attempt was made to build up a distinct and rather eccentric personality for Quinnie .

Soon, however, "Quinliak" had to give up the too ambitious aim of covering, in a series of columns, the important jazz records (a job which may now be accomplished by the forthcoming Jazz Record Book). Reissues were being released in dozens by Columbia and other companies, so Quinnie settled down to the difficult enough task of reviewing them as they appeared. Soon he had dropped back into the editor's usual style.

"Quinlisk" wrote seriously and uncompromisingly. Howls of protest soon came from offended Bixians, advocates of swing style, and such. Harsh. criticism of certain "classics" brought forth complaints from the same people who'd complained previously that J.I. would approve any record if it was only old enough.

Of course, the standards of good jazz which Quinlisk insisted on were simply more rigorous expressions of J.I.'s own standards, developed positively rather than (as they. had been sometimes) by omission. Many of our readers enjoyed Quinlisk's writings and said so; while even those who thought he was a lousy "purist" admitted that he often made sense. The old departments grew during the second year of publication. The record reviews included long analyses of the more important records. Quinlisk discussed most of the Bluebird, Columbia and Decca reissues as they apeared. The collectors' column printed the usual minor-interest stuff besides many new discoveries. There were the Cripple Clarence Streamline Train which had been unnoticed In the Decca catalog for years; Dick Rieber's Oliver Gennett find and Keith Holst's unissued Tesch; the unheard-of Danny Altier Vocalion with Muggsy, O'Brien, Stacy and Wettling. This column also reprinted useful information from other publications, scotched false reports and established correct personnels for many old records.

J.I.'s policy was maturing rapidly in all these departments and in the selection and editing of-feature articles. First, there was the series on New Orleans Clarinets. This was to have included biographies of the most important clarinetists from way down yonder, with a concluding essay on the N.O. clarinet style. We couldn't complete that plan: no one would consent to write the summation, a promised article on George Baquet never materialized, we couldn't get anything on the white clarinets. Johnny Dodds died just a few days before our second Chicago reporter, Wes Neff, was to interview him for a story, and there was a hectic attempt to put together a memorial issue for that great musician. Wes sent whatever facts and photographs he could garner on short notice; Bill Russell, driving from San Francisco, took time off to air mail a letter about Johnny.

Later Wes sent in a biography and complete discography of Jimmie Noone. George Hoofer caught Barney Bigard in Chicago and wrote him up. Mary Karobey's meticulous story of Sidney Bechet was accompanied by John Reid's fine discography of Sid. Herman and the editor collaborated on the stories or Edmond Hall and Albert Nicholas. The last of the series, Orin Blackstone's article on Big Eye, was excellent.

In the second issue there was an article by Bob Sales on Fate Marable which brought Down Beat' s wrath on us again. Fate liked Louis Armstrong pretty well, and said so; but Down Beat's money was on Emmet Hardy.

Number 4 was a scoop issue. Bill Love's valuable Ma Rainey discography was ready for publication. We'd learned somehow (probably from Bill Riddle) that Ma had been heard of last in Columbus, Georgia. Advised and egged on by Dan Qualey, we'd written Ma what now seems to us a very odd letter, and sent it in care of the Columbus postmaster. A week later we lesrned that Ma had been dead eight months, unremembered even by the colored press: The short biography which her brother, Thomas Pridgett sent us was tbe first authentic published information on Ma's life, promised photographs, too; but they never came.

Other features of Volume Two were Dave Stuart's fine story on Kid Ory George Beall's encyclopedic study of "Forgotten Giants" of tbe trumpet,Don Haynes' mercilessly blue-penciled piece on Cow Cow. In 1941 the emphasis shifted to criticism, with Walter Sidney and Jim Higgins contributing thoughtful essays and Panassie sending articles on Louis, Noone and Jelly Roll Morton. There were a number of shorter articles by musicians and collectors. Fine old photographs came from Herman in New York and Wes Neff in Chicago and Orin Blackstone in New Orleans; Ed Rice furnished spot drawings; we became more adept in using Fototype and photostats to make J.I. more attractive.

In the December 6 issue came an announcement as exciting, to us, as J.I.'s own beginning. This was the first Limited Edition reissue, the tests of which sounded even better to our ears than the original Gennetts. Your enthusiastic response to this offer, and to later releases, was heartening.

Things were far from smooth, even difficult. But J.I. was still improving in December when a death in Gleason's family took him back to Westchester, this time to stay. From then on, J.I. was a one-man job again. There couldn't be any thought of stopping publication, and there was no time to reorganize and look for new partners With more work than ever to be done including the new labor of packing and shipping the reissues, the editor went ahead on the Christmas issue alone.

Not surprisingly, it came out late. And with some time off during 'the holidays, the following issue had to be dated January 24; it was three weeks overdue.

During February, by cutting down to 24 pages and hiring a part-time typist, J.I. was kept almost on schedule. By the end of the month, the staying power the editor had been drawing on so long was gone. He went to a doctor, who said that a few weeks of complete rest were essential.

So in the issue of March 21, 1941, a temporary suspension of publication was announced. The third J.I. reissue, planned long before, was then ready; and it too was announced, when Milt Gabler agreed that Commodore would ship the orders. When the issue was in the mail, the editor went to a hospital and spent most of the next three weeks sleeping.

Then it turned out that he couldn't go back to work at all. His doctor thought it might be a good idea to spend the next year getting rid of that lung spot. (Incidentally, it wasn't either tuberculosis or pernicious anemia, as the trade papers solicitously reported; rather, a tricky lung condition which sometimes goes with a physical breakdown.)

Home again in April the editor had no more exaggerated ideas of his physical endurance. A few weeks later he had packed up, put some furniture, records and the good old addressograph into storage and moved out to the country near Gleason's. What was left of JAZZ INFORMATION went along in a few packing-boxes.

As far as the editor was concerned, the magazine was through. This time there could be no doubt about that. And no one would take the responsibility of keeping it going. So he began the last one-man job: the final issue of J.I.

Still optimistic, he planned it for July publication. Then it had to be postponed until August and now, at the end of October, is finally completed.

Almost all of J.I.'s planned and leftover material was included. Perhaps this isn't all that a 104-page J.I. should be - it's not too well balanced, and it was assembled in a determined but not a very cheerful spirit. But no complaints will be accepted.

* * *

There isn't room for the many other memories: of Ross Tavern, Where Art Hodes, George Zack, Rod Cless, Jimmy Yancey played.... the Boston Hoax... trying to get Ad Reinhardt to do a cover.... Lonesome Blues... Herman bounding up the stairs with that Red Hot Peppers photograph.... Dan Qualey listening to any good piano record... a weekend in Saratoga... how we looked after working all night... the Beetle Airmail specials and telegrams at eight A.M. Stelia Brooks and Hodes at the Pirate's Den... Harry Gennett's barn..., the Columbia reissue contest that flopped... those rumors... having dinner with Herman was always an interesting experience... everything going wrong on the Keppard reissue time after time... playing deck tennis in the dining room for relaxation... waiting to hear the reissues had been shipped.... Hodes' band at Childs'.. matching pennies.... Stalebread and Texas blues...learning to play blues piano,... raw gin and straight bourbon ... the editor's last two blowouts... Sidney Bechet as entertainer.... Milt Gabler's sessions at Ryan's.... Jelly Roll Morton's lectures on jazz... Gleason and Rayburn getting married one weekend between Nos. 6 and 7 of Volume Two.... Friday nights at the Commodore... Hoyte Kline's visit to New York.... tracking down Varsity's Gennett race reissues... Dan Qualey's conversation and his jokes... you got to break down, that's all.

And there are a lot of friends to thank for having made J.I. possible. Ralph and Jean Gleason don't have to be thanked; Milt Gabler's enthusiastic co-operation and the phenomenal Herman have been mentioned already. Chicago correspondents Wesley M. Neff and John Steiner contributed their services cheerfully, and usually came through in the pinches.

Besides these, there was a group of friends who stood by the magazine in its younger days and saw it through to the end: George M. Avakian, George . Beall, Orin Blackstone, Hoyte D. Kline Alfred W. Lion, William C. Love, John D. Reid, Dick Rieber, William Russell, Dave Stuart, Dan Qualey.

J.I. is also specially indebted to Art Feher, John Hammond, George Hoefer Jr., Charles Miller, Fred R. Miller, Hugues Panassie, Octave Romaine, Walter E. Schaap.

And to E. M. Ashcraft III, John Beeby, Ralph Berton, Frank Marshall Davis, Charles Delaunay, Dave Dexter Jr., Charles Emge, George Frazier, Otto Hess, Merrill M. Hammond Jr., James Higgins, Kay Johns, Mary E. Karoley, Harry Mereness Jr., Edward Morrow, Charles Peterson, B. E. Biddle, Charles Payne Rogers, Charles Rossi, Ross Russell, Robert B. Sales, Stephen H. Sholes, Walter Sidney, Margo Terry, Stanley Warren, Donald Wolf, and Leslie Zacheis.

We can't name the scores of musicians who patiently gave us information and loaned us valuable photographs; or a hundred more collectors who contributed importantly. We're grateful, too, to the subscribers who plugged J.I. and supported it, who waited patiently for late issues and tardily shipped records, who understood that we could not acknowledge all their letters and whose enthusiasm was one of the best things about JAZZ INFORMATION.

* * *

The last two years have not been exactly the time of our lives. To its editors, JAZZ INFORMATION brought as much trouble as pleasure. But its worth must be measured in terms of usefulness to readers; and if their letters are a fair indication, J.I. really did in some degree "fulfill a unique and important function in American

We made plenty of mistakes. The greatest was in being too ambitious for J.I. If our standards had been less severe, if we hadn't increased the magazine's scope (and our own tasks) continually, J.I. might still be publishing today. But so much needed to be done; and we couldn't have expected the bad luck which kept coming.

When we suspended publication in March 1941, many subscribers jumped to the conclusion that J.I. was in financial difficulties. As this story was shown, the magazine was no pot of gold but financial troubles were only a contributing cause, perhaps not even a major one, of J.I.'s collapse. Our worst money worries, in fact, were behind us; and the deficit, though Large, was not increasing. J.I. had to suspend, quite simply, because it was dependent on a very small staff which one by one, had to give up.

One thing which we don't include among our mistakes is J.I.'s editorial policy, with a different policy, J.I. might have been more "successful"; but it wouldn't have been worth working quite so hard for.

When J.I. began publication, it was America's first magazine devoted exclusively to hot music. Before J.I., you could find information, sometimes an interesting article or photograph, in the trade papers - but only by wading through a morass of irrelevant and usually offensive tripe.

So JAZZ INFORMATION's first point of policy was to confine its activities to hot jazz. The phrase, of course, is susceptible to many definitions; necessarily, we chose our own.

The second point was to be non-commercial; which means simply that we wanted to publish a good magazine more than we wanted a profitable one. Whether the two are mutually exclusive, as we believe, is another question. And J.I.'s non-commercialism was journalistic, not musical. The term "non - commercial" as a musical criterion is confusing and. rather foolish, and we have tried to avoid it.

Being a non-commercial hot jazz magazine, J.I. could not appeal to working musicians. Musicians, as a rule, are understandably more interested in getting and holding a job than in hot music. And we made no appeal to jitterbugs; J.I.'S readers had to be hot fans, collectors, and the few musicians who really care about jazz.

That meant no ads from big-name bands, no full page displays from musical instrument manufacturers. J.I. had to be supported by its circulation, not by advertising. And in forswearing the mass appeal of leggy pictures, fan stuff and general vulgarity, it limited its circulation to a small group. As Jim Dugan expressed it, J.I. was for "more advanced students". It had classified itself as a "little magazine", and the salaried boys of the trade press had their chance to crack wise just as if their slick paper and larger circulation made them any more respectable.

The problem of a "little" magazine is that, unlike its profitable contemporaries, it must have its own critical standards. We were told that jazz was "the last thing in the world to be 'dogmatic' about" - but even if that were true, why bother with an opinionless magazine at all?

So J.I. took the basic theory and background of jazz much as it was established in Jazzmen, forsaking the amorphous, too eclectic methods of earlier French and American writers. But it went further than Jazzmen; it pointed out the very tenuous link between the swing music of today and the genuine, exciting music of the folk blues and the New Orleans jazz tradition.

J.I.'s record reviews, instrumental in the magazine's early popularity, told bluntly what the editors thought. They analyzed small band jazz records and piano solos, skimmed the better large bands and gave full approval to very few of the new records. The big swing bands in general were criticized for what they are: watered - down, emasculated, often hysterical remnants of the jazz tradition. In the small-band field too, we attacked such off-the-track ventures as John Kirby's. As a result, hundreds of record collectors praised J.I.'s reviews as the most dependable to be found. Other welcome innovations were publication of full personnels wherever practicable and the fullest possible coverage of blues and other "race" releases.

Hot fans found it hard, sometimes, to understand our viewpoint unless they were familiar with the background - the old jazz records. Thus the majority of J.I.'s readers were collectors. Recognition of this majority was expressed in our "Collectors Items" department which took up the job of correcting and annotating Hot Discography, aiming at a complete documentation of jazz records, good and bad.

But J.I. wasn't entirely a "collectors' magazine". Our voice was raised against the tastes of large groups of collectors. We didn't hesitate to criticize old records as severely as new ones when they failed to meet our standards. We tried to knock down some of the old accepted tin gods, as well as the latest. But we preferred to forget the phonies and talk about the real jazzmen who'd been neglected by other writers and publications.

J.I.'s policy had begun to crystallize by the end or the first year. We took the risk of talking about. jazz seriously, and in terms which seemed strange to many. We held the position, obvious enough to anyone who knows the music, that the real jazz is the stuff which came out of New Orleans, flavored with ragtime and rooted in the blues; that this music is as valid today as it ever was, and that the best hope for jazz is to rediscover those roots.

To understand this wonderful music you must know it. Without knowledge, and the taste which it forms, no one is entitled to assume that he can be "his own critic". We suggest humbly that if people will listen to the real jazz (chiefly on records), they will develop good taste. Unfortunately, too many people are prepared to insist that their own taste is good enough, and to look with scorn and suspicion on those who pretend to know more about it.

They are encouraged in this error by the dozens of pseudo-critics who write for the popular magazines. They are warned against "purists", musical snobs and kill-joys. They are even told that all critics are fools, usually because they spend more time listening to music and thinking about it than learning to play a smooth second-alto part. They hear sneers at the "label collector" who loves his old records (only because they're rare, of course) but wouldn't go around the corner to hear some jive-butcher's "jam session".

Actually the quarrel is not between "dead" and "live" music, "commercial" or "non - commercial", "Negro jazz" or "white jazz". It's between two kinds of music - jazz and quasi-jazz - and between two kinds of taste - discriminating and sloppy. J.I. stood for good jazz and good taste; it talked up the old-timers, colored and white alike, who played good jazz; and it did everything in its power to support the men, colored and white alike, who are playing good jazz today.

That's about all. We avoided the easier and more profitable course, and we did our best. Now, with J.I. gone and nothing to take its place, rabble-rousers and self-advertisers will be free to continue assuring their readers that it's fun to be foolish. The atrocious criticism of Down Beat, Music and Rhythm and such publications will seldom be contradicted. The movies will tell the story of jazz in their inimitable way, the radio will present the Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street.

For all these reasons, we're sorry that J.I.'s campaign must be ended. But perhaps in two years we did accomplish something; and if J.I. can't be revived soon, someone else will get mad enough to start a new jazz magazine for America.

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Eyeball
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#4 Post by Eyeball » Sun Apr 13, 2014 8:13 pm

GemZombie wrote:Thanks John, this is some great stuff.
All the links are dead now. Maybe the information has been saved and online somewhere else now.
Will big bands ever come back?

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