The Jazz Review"Founded by Nat Hentoff, Martin Williams, and Hsio Wen Shih in New York in 1958, The Jazz Review was the premier journal of jazz in the United States. Short-lived as it was (1958-1961), it set an enduring standard for criticism.While all of the material is of high quality, several features are particularly distinctive: the regular reviews of musicians' work by other musicians; Hentoff's regular column "Jazz in Print," which deals with the politics of the music business as well as of the nation; and the incorporation of a wide range of musical styles and approaches to discussing jazz."Jazz Studies Online, The Center for Jazz Studies, Columbia University (URL, accessed 25 April 2019)
The Grackle: Improvised Music in Transition"Ron Welburn began his prolific career in music (and literary) criticism in the late 1960s. He helped found the important journal The Grackle in 1976. Although oriented towards free jazz, coverage extended to Latin music, an interview with Ralph Ellison, a Welburn piece on Eddie Jefferson and Joe Lee Wilson. It maintained a strict policy of publishing work by people of African descent. Welburn recounted being asked by several white writers to be published in The Grackle; his consistent response was that the purpose of the magazine was to provide an outlet for black writers on jazz, whose work was not being accepted by established jazz magazines."W.S. Tkweme, Vindicating Karma: Jazz and the Black Arts Movement (2007)
The Record Changer"The Record Changer was a small and independent magazine owned and managed by Bill Grauer and Orrin Keepnews, former classmates at Columbia University who transformed the traditional jazz oriented publication into a progressive voice." Rob van der Bliek, editor, The Thelonious Monk Reader (2001)
Down Beat"Race relations, sexual equality, unionism, wars, recessions, birth, life, death, the triumph of the will, the battle of the soul: it spills across the pages of Down Beat. The writers serve as a Mount Rushmore of jazz journalism, but the opportunity to read about Ellington, Armstrong, Miles, Bird, Dizzy, Coltrane, Brubeck, Eldridge, Lester Young, Ella, Lady Day–all the greats–to hear them talk about their lives and their careers–in their voices–that's what paints a lasting picture, and delivers a glimpse inside the artist's world. That's the essence of Down Beat. It's a magazine for jazz musicians, written by jazz musicians and the best jazz journalists in the world. Everyone who gets involved, from the musicians to the writers to the photographers, does so with an amazing dedication to the art form of jazz and the craft of making a great jazz magazine. It's magic."Frank Alkyer and Ed Enright, 'Down Beat' The Great Jazz Interviews (2009)
Metronome"Founded in 1881, Metronome magazine became indispensable during the swing era, when it switched its focus to jazz. For decades, it was the best publication for reviews, features, and show listings of the era's foremost music genre."Jordan G. Teicher, "Rare Photographs of Jazz Icons From the Archives of Metronome Magazine" (2015) (URL, accessed 25 April 2019)
Cadence"Frustrated with the lack of published coverage of truly creative music, Robert Rusch founded Cadence magazine in 1975 to give a voice to avant-garde artists who were working hard to advance the state of contemporary music. Its format has remained relatively steady over a quarter century. Each issue features two or three interviews with creative musicians, along with a great number of reissue and new-release reviews. The center section of each issue contains a list of thousands of recordings."Todd S. Jenkins, Free Jazz and Free Improvisation: An Encyclopedia (2004)
The Mississippi Rag"The Mississippi Rag was the most successful magazine devoted to traditional jazz and ragtime and it featured not only historical articles but provided an important benefit in spotlighting up-and-coming artists. Scholarly articles and reviews on ragtime became a staple in the Rag and ragtime originators like Eubie Blake and popular performers like Max Morath were prominently featured."Paige VanVorst, "Leslie Johnson," in JazzBeat (2009) (URL, accessed 25 April 2019)
78 Quarterly"When 78 Quarterly first appeared in 1967, it was the most sumptuously prepared periodical on blues and jazz 78 rpm records of its time, with feature articles about records and recorded artists, illustrated with rare photographs and record labels. There are few if any serial publications quite like this."Gayle Wardlow, Chasin' that Devil Music: Searching for the Blues (1998)
JazzTimes"One of the world’s leading jazz publications ... publishing leading critics like Leonard Feather, Stanley Dance, Martin Williams and Ira Gitler.""Ira Sabin, Founder of JazzTimes Magazine, Is Dead at 90" (2018) (URL, accessed 30 September 2022)
Expansions"Expansions featured poetry by Elaine Workman and others, reviews of books and “Blaxploitation” films, reports on Harlem and Brooklyn community affairs, and features on fashion and black- owned businesses. The newspaper validated group members as activists in their community by juxtaposing stories about the state of affairs in black neighborhoods and the conditions facing musicians."Eric Porter, What Is This Thing Called Jazz? (2002)
Wavelength"The magazine was dedicated to telling the life stories of the many unheralded New Orleans musicians who had influenced American popular music. It covered the range of New Orleans music -- jazz and gospel, rock and classical, but with an emphasis on rhythm and blues, highlighting the work of some of the city’s most talented writers, artists, and photographers including Jeff Hannusch, Bunny Matthews, Skip Bolen, Rick Olivier, Kalamu ya Salaam, Gene Scaramuzzo, Rick Coleman, Paula Burch, Al Kennedy and dozens of others.""Wavelength" (URL, accessed 30 September 2022)
Jazz-Tango"Jazz-Tango owes its publication and its existence to a group of French musicians which slowly formed during the 1920s. Its main editor, Stéphane Mougin, a pianist and a recognized non-conformist, is known for having played jazz during his exit competition at the Paris Conservatory, where he won Second Prize. Subsequently, he chose to only play jazz, in dance halls and nightclubs. Michel Emer, another regular collaborator at Jazz-Tango, also performed on the piano in dance halls, cabarets and music halls.
These musicians wished above all to defend their working conditions, an enterprise which often involves an effort to legitimize their music. Sharp criticisms of the attitude of the public which only pays absent attention to jazz are legion in the columns of Jazz-Tango. For Stéphane Mougin, trained in “learned” music, jazz deserves a status other than that of background music in dubious places."
Martin Guerpin, "Une histoire oubliée: la presse jazz en France (1929-2011)." Recherches sur la presse musicale française. (Observatoire Musical Français: Conférences et séminaires, No. 48.) Paris, Université de Paris IV [Paris-Sorbonne], 2011. Translated.
La Revue du Jazz"Having left a magazine supporting bebop [Jazz Hot] - partly for personal reasons - from 1949 Hugues Panassié set out to delegitimize bebop in order to justify the editorial choices of his Bulletin, which opposed those of Jazz Hot." ...
"For Hugues Panassié, jazz is defined as the pure musical expression of the African-American community. Having interpreted the harmonic and rhythmic sophistication of bebop as borrowings from Western art music, he refuses to consider this new music as "authentic" jazz. ... The condemnation of bebop in the Revue du Jazz immediately resulted in an overhaul of the statutes of the Hot Club."
Martin Guerpin, "Une histoire oubliée: la presse jazz en France (1929-2011)." Recherches sur la presse musicale française. (Observatoire Musical Français: Conférences et séminaires, No. 48.) Paris, Université de Paris IV [Paris-Sorbonne], 2011. Translated.
Jazz and Jazz & Pop "Jazz began in 1962 as a venture subsidized by record producer Bob Thiele and operated by his partner Pauline Rivelli. Dan Morgenstern was hired as editor at the outset and Rivelli, who was initially designated managing editor, learned from him the fundamentals of running a music magazine. By 1967, Rivelli had been editor-in-chief for several years and in August she wrote an editorial [explaining the title change to Jazz & Pop]: ‘1967 has witnessed the birth of a serious American pop music which encompasses jazz, rock, folk and blues ... Jazz, pop, classical, folk ... these are crude descriptive categories at best … let’s face it. Jazz needs popular music, economically as well as aesthetically."
Matt Brennan, When Genres Collide: Down Beat, Rolling Stone, and the Struggle Between Jazz and Rock. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017: 100-02.
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