RIPMJAZZ
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Jazz

Jazz can be seen as the phoenix which rose from the ashes of Metronome and The Jazz Review. Editor Dan Morgenstern – previously editor of Metronome – writes in the prologue to the first issue of Jazz that the United States deserved a diversity of jazz publications which, in absence of others, would be the sole domain of Down Beat. The first issue announced 53 editors, contributors, and advisors, an impressive list of prominent figures from across the jazz world: a clear statement of purpose. Officially published by Jazz Press, Inc., the owner and financier was the record producer Bob Thiele, then director of Impulse! Records and previous jazz journalist, having founded the similarly-titled Jazz (New York, 1942-1945, in two series) twenty years previously. Morgenstern served as editor until the end of 1963 after which Pauline Rivelli, previously managing editor, became editor. 

From its first issue, Jazz intended to cover the worlds of the art: current and historic, domestic and foreign, conservative and radical, all in a serious way. The editorials in Jazz’s first years sing this like a chorus: of a broad and open-minded approach to issues involving jazz. The first issue demonstrates this diversity: Morgenstern and Hughes Panassié on Ray Charles, Stanley Dance interviewing Duke Ellington, Otis Ferguson on Bix Beiderbecke in Chicago, along with record reviews by Manny Albam, Jack Bradley, Helen Dance Oakley, Don Heckman, David Himmelstein, and Morgenstern. Stereo equipment reviews, photography, and news appears, along with the column “Jazz Forum” in which prominent names in jazz respond to a posed question. In the third issue, Morgenstern notes that Down Beat refused to run an advertisement for Jazz – perhaps unsurprisingly given the upstart publication’s ambitions.

In the January/February 1964 issue, Rivelli took over as editor, initially steering Jazz along a similar track. (Morgenstern would become associate editor of Down Beat later that year before becoming full editor later.)  With critics awards, polls, along with regular reviews of festivals, records, books, Jazz continued apace. Large numbers of photographs are introduced; writers such as LeRoi Jones, A. B. Spellmann, Willis Conover, Frank Kofsky, Martin Williams and many others contribute articles. Bob Thiele writes on recording sessions with Charles Mingus and John Coltrane. 

As has been observed by the musicologist Matt Brennan (When Genres Collide) and elsewhere, 1967 was a turning point in which rock ‘n’ roll criticism began to be taken seriously and critical attention began to pass from jazz to rock. Reflecting this change, Rivelli changed the title of Jazz to become Jazz & Pop with the August 1967 issue.

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