What is the Jazz Press Anyway?
RIPM's jazz collection defies a concrete definition of "jazz" or "jazz press." From hastily-written typewriter newsletters to glossy magazines, news and information about jazz has been disseminated throughout the world in many forms.
Some of the earliest journals in our jazz collection covered ragtime and early jazz orchestras.
Christensen's Ragtime Review (1914-1918) was a mouthpiece for its editor Axel Christensen's schools, but also is an early example of music reviews and popular music commentary.
The Orchestra World (1927-1953) is not purely a jazz journal. But given its general scope on orchestras from symphonic to big band and dance bands, this periodical documents the shift in the popular and dance music industry toward jazz in the 20s and 30s and its everlasting presence beyond.
We find jazz musicians, jazz music, and jazz influences throughout the pages of periodicals and magazines that focus on the popular music recording industry and the rise of motion pictures and Hollywood.
The Capitol News from Hollywood (1943-1952) was a promotional magazine from Capitol Records that covered their signed artists and general trends in the recorded music industry as it intersected with motion pictures, Hollywood, and radio. This magazine is a great tool to understand the commercialization of "jazz" and its use as a marketing term in the 1940s and 50s.
All-American Band Leaders (1942-1943) and its succeeding titles covered band leaders, musicians, and radio personalities in the realm of jazz and dance bands as they intersected with the radio industry and Hollywood in the 1940s. The content leans more toward fandom and celebrity even as they begin to review records in its later years of publication, further highlighting the commercialization of jazz.
Some periodicals focused almost exclusively on jazz, even if their publication preceded the emergence of the art form.
Metronome began in the late 19th century but by 1932 the editor pivoted to focusing solely on jazz. In its earliest jazz years, it focused on swing music, but grew with the jazz genre. The periodical is notable for its music criticism and record and concert reviews, demonstrating that jazz was a serious genre of music worth critical attention.
La Revue du jazz (1929-1930) was the first periodical dedicated to jazz music in France. Its founding writers were jazz musicians themselves trying to document an emerging music scene and legitimize their positions as professional musicians in France, while at the same time defining European jazz as distinct from is American roots.
There are many examples of similar periodicals in the RIPM Jazz collection. Many editors and writers believed that they would be publishing one of the first jazz-exclusive magazines and that their coverage of jazz would be the most authoritative or critical.
Some, like Hip/Jazz Digest, Storyville, etc., thrived; most others folded in a few years.
There are many examples of similar periodicals in the RIPM Jazz collection. Many editors and writers believed that they would be publishing one of the first jazz-exclusive magazines and that their coverage of jazz would be the most authoritative or critical.
Some, like Hip/Jazz Digest, Storyville, etc., thrived; most others folded in a few years.
Social and academic societies convening around jazz music emerged in the late 1930s. Often, these groups published newsletters, sometimes intended for just their members but also for general interest.
The Second Line (1950-2002) was a publication by the New Orleans Jazz Club. The periodical inevitably covers many topics in both modern-day and historical jazz, but its purpose was to align with the club's mission to write about and preserve early New Orleans jazz history. Early issues focus mainly on early jazz history and club reports, while later years include review sections and research articles.
Il Sismografo (1992-1999) was a newsletter exclusively for distribution among the members of S.I.S.M.A, the Societa Italiana per lo Studio della Musica Afroamericana. The society's aim was to study African American musical traditions and at the same advocate for its scholarly importance in the European academy. In the newsletter, members shared discographies and compiled jazz indexes, or wrote about topics in jazz education and ways forward in including jazz as part of European musicological discourses.
Record collecting periodicals may not seem the most exciting nor the most widely-distributed, but the groups that published these catalogs and discographies performed an extremely important service.
Journals like The Record Changer, Record Research, and 78 Quarterly were publications for record collectors to share their libraries, sell and exchange records, document the historical process of collecting and cataloging records, while also using that information to write histories on musicians, clubs, venues, etc.
Record collecting periodicals may not seem the most exciting nor the most widely-distributed, but the groups that published these catalogs and discographies performed an extremely important service.
Journals like The Record Changer, Record Research, and 78 Quarterly were publications for record collectors to share their libraries, sell and exchange records, document the historical process of collecting and cataloging records, while also using that information to write histories on musicians, clubs, venues, etc.
Record collecting periodicals may not seem the most exciting nor the most widely-distributed, but the groups that published these catalogs and discographies performed an extremely important service.
Journals like The Record Changer, Record Research, and 78 Quarterly were publications for record collectors to share their libraries, sell and exchange records, document the historical process of collecting and cataloging records, while also using that information to write histories on musicians, clubs, venues, etc.
Some periodicals that we include in RIPM Jazz expanded beyond the genre boundaries of "jazz," while others never fit into a defined category.
JazzTimes (1980-present) has a long publishing history in jazz and record collecting, but as the periodical shifted to a glossy, widely-distributed commercial magazine, it demonstrated the crossover and blurred lines between jazz and other musics, such as rock, R&B, hip hop, rap, and other forms of electronic music into the 21st century.
The Grackle (1976-1979) never attempted to fit into the boundaries of jazz music. Its aim was to discuss Black improvised music, and its pages reveal a wide ideological understanding of that aim, from soul to avant-garde and experimental music to salsa, grappling with the intersections of race and politics in their musical and cultural analyses.