The Jazz Review - Jazz Studies Online

Woodmouny Avenue, Toronto 6,
Ontario. $1.20 a year, $.10 an issue.
Best jazz magazine in Britain is
Albert McCarthy's Jazz monthly (St.
Austell, Cornwall, England). July is¬
sue has the second and final part of
Neil Leonard's intriguing The Opposition
to Jazz in the United States,
1918-29; an article by James P.
Townley on The Missourians; pieces
on Milt Jackson, etc. August included
Paul Oliver on Brownie McGhee;
Leonard Feather on Battle of Jazz:
Eggheads Vs. Yahoos; Sait-On
Jamais and Other Films by Max Harrison
etc. There ii t
always record
and book reviews and usually firstrate
pictures Most astute article
written on the Modern Jazz Quartet
was by Max Harrison in the April
1958 Jazz monthly
Considerably less welbedited but
occasionally of interest is Jazz Journal
(The Cottage, 27 Willow Vale,
London W 12). July had Reminiscing
with Bill Coleman by Douglas Hague;
Nevil Skrimshire's On Tour with the
J.A.T.P.; Stanley Dance's regular
feature, the always readable and
often arguable Lightly and Politely;
and damned if there isn't an article
by George W. Kay on Dudley Fosdkk,
Pioneer Jazz Mellophonist. Jazz
Journal has a relatively new, quite
perceptive American correspondent
in Dan Morgenstern who's in every
month I sav this desoite his calling
Art Ford "inoffensive!''
Don Gold's column on the Newport
Festival in the August 21, 1958,
Down Beat is an intelligent, constructive
analysis of that blimp's
faults, but I doubt if anybody in The
Establishment will take it seriously
other than to complain that a "conspiracy"
is being carried on against
Newport. A conspiracy of taste? The
same issue has the annual critic's
poll. I with Leonard Feather
and Ralph Gleason that the poll's
value in so far as it concerns the
musicians is ourstiomlile and may
even be harmful in cases.'i do think
though that the careful reader will
find the poll valuable for what it
tells him of the critics A choice for
example, oi tea neam as nesi nig
band Or Abe T incoln on New Star
TrnmhoL h PL,se "anvrL whr, has
« r«,,lWnl , « Arl liLrT
Z^ZelTt 1 Je tl n l ^
oeserves at lea^st one vote once.
• ?u • 1. T r ? T l l ! n T
in the tent at Great South bay).
Anyway, this magazine will run
no polls. Of any kind.
British novelist Kingsley Amis is
unaccountably a jazz reviewer for
The Observer. In an account of The
Jazz Makers July 20, 1958, Amis
observed: "The subjects of this collection
include not only Louis Armstrong,
Bessie Smith and Charlie
Parker, all of them central figures in
their different fields, but the trumpeter
Rov Eldridge a mere squeal-
merchant for most of his C 1 rii reer and
the New Orleans drummer Baby
Dodds whose soiritual home is
vaudeville (accompaniments to tan
dancers and tight wire acts a spe¬
cialty.)"
Unlucky Jim, stripped ignorant out
of his field.
Labels, Always Labels: The June
issue of Jazz monthly, Pierre Bompar,
36, rue George, Marseille) has
a feature titled South Coast Jazzmen.
No, they don't mean Gulf Coast.
They cover a tenor from Toulon and
a bassist from Marseilles. Those geographical
compartments travel as jazz
does.
Best of the French magazines remains
Jazz-Hot; Charles Delaunay, director
; Andre Clergeat, editor-in-chief.
Address: 14 rue Chaptal, Paris 9. In
America, it's $4.50 a year from Felix
Manskleid, 40-35 Ithaca Street, Elmhurst,
Long Island, New York. The
July-August issue includes a long set
of reminiscences by Claude Hopkins
collected by Rudy Powell; and
Funky or not Funky by Max' Henri
Cabridens. Cabridens asked several
musicians to define the term. Among
the Answers" Sidney Bechet ("I don't
know anything about it") • Martial
Solal ("First time I ever hear that
word"') • Don Rvas ("Primitive- a
little vulgar") Kansas Fields
("Those who play the blues with a
lot nf hpnrt"l • Kpnnv Clarkp after
InhhiJhil Mr, 7lL«t,meW*
jazz musicians succeed trom time
I, " y g , f c- T II
IMI II M E A N S , D M ^ 5 M C E
Koll alt good musicians have played
* J- . U I ? M E R A M A X I M .. U R Y ,;
It s the dirty of modern musicians.
Ine interviewer compared all his
definitions at the end (including
those of the critics) and concluded:
"Et apres tout, est-ce que cela a
tellement d'importance?" Each issue
also has Boris Vian's irreverent
Revue de la Presse, the spiritual progenitor
of this roundup. For drummers
and others: the April Jazz-Hot
has an article on the techniques of
Elvin Jones and Philly Joe Jones by
Bobby Jaspar.
Worth examining is another French
monthly, Jazz Magazine; Daniel Filipacchi
and Frank Tenot, editors; 3,
Rue de 1'Echelle, Paris 1. In August-
September, there is a reprint of one
of the musicians' panels at Lenox
two summers ago, a piece on Django
Reinhardt. and an interview-article
on John Coltrane.
There is also Hugues Panassie's
monthly Bulletin du Hot Club de
France, 65, Faubourg du Moustier,
Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne),
France. It's like reading Time; if
you are aware of the magazine's intense
biases against modern jazz and
other "heresies" and can thereby
screen its material in that context,
there are articles of some interest
each month. And good pictures.
Except for George Pitts in the
Pittsburgh Courier, there is little of
jazz interest in the Negro press. Once
in a while, the Magazine Section of
the weekly A fro-American in Baltimore
has a feature of interest in
fields like gospel singing (for example,
the July 12, 1958, issue).
An English monthly, Jazz News,
edited by Brian Harvey, Alderman
House, 37 Soho Square, London, W.
1., has a vinegary book reviewer,
Benedict Osuch (better known by
another name elsewhere, including
in this magazine). In the July issue
he includes his sixth installment of
a review of the largely ridiculous
Pelican book, Jazz, by Rex Harris:
"there appears what is generally
known among Pelicans as 'Harris's
Law of Diminishing Returns,' which
says, 'Jazz quality varies inversely as
the square of the number of musicians
taking part' which means
that the perfect jazz band consists
of one man sitting in a New Orleans
bordello playing a blues in C "
Picture caption in Jazz News: "Below
is National Jazz Federation Sec¬
retary Harold Pendleton caught at a
New York conference with the internationally
famous Joe Glazer (sic)
— manager of Louis Armstrong and
near owner of American Jazz."
Cartel Joe, they call him at Yankee
Stadium.
And in the letters-to-the-editor section
of the August Esquire, the gallant
George Frazier, responding to
a quoted attack on Glaser by Ruby
Braff in the course of an article on
BrafT a few months before, proclaims
(not entirely in Latin): "The boy,