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1939-40 Jazz Magazine is Online


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I don't know if it's already been pointed out here, but the text of many issues of the pioneering jazz magazine "Jazz Information" is available at http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/main.html It makes for interesting reading, though some of the recored reviews are a little puzzling:

COLEMAN HAWKINS' Orchestra (SB 10523)

Body And Soul - Fine Dinner.

Tommy Lindsay, Joe Guy trumpets; Earl Hardy, trombone; Jackie Fields, Eustis Moore, alto saxes; Coleman Hawkins, tenor sax; Gene Rodgers, piano; Oscar Smith, bass; Arthur Herbert, drums.

Coleman Hawkins' second record has been released, and again we are compelled to report that his improvisations on the slow turns are sterile and meaningless, and his tone on the fast side forced and unpleasant. In reply to Mr. Caughren, who criticized our stand on Hawkins in the December 8 number, we might observe that the point at issue is not the roughness of Hawkins' tone, but its quality. A tone can be rough - - like Pee Wee Russell's - without being strained. A good jazz tone on any wind instrument,we insist, must combine force with restraint in some degree of balance. The finest and hottest intonation comes when great power is firmly controlled. When the control slips, you have the kind of tenor Hawkins plays on Fine Dinner. And not only the tone fails, but the phrasing, which becomes stiff and a bit sloppy.

On Body And Soul the trouble is different. No forcing here, and the tone is immensely better, even if a little sentimental. But Hawkins plays almost entirely without inspiration; his variations are mechanically constructed of cliches and without much logic.

Hawkins' talent in his Henderson days was undeniably fine, and we don't doubt that he can do much better than the new records show. His present band is certainly uninspiring.

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http://home.att.net/~joeshepherd/jazz/jihist.html

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.

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