RIPMJAZZ
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Storyville

Storyville was the long-running British journal devoted to historic jazz, ragtime, and blues. Begun in 1965, a total of 166 issues were published: six per year through 1986, quarterly from 1987 to 1994, biannually in 1995 and single issues in alternating years from 1997 to 2003. With more than 200 pages per year as a norm, and the final issues effectively appearing as books, Storyville was perhaps the most regular and devoted publication on early recording history of its period.


The founders of Storyville likened themselves to a club. Editor Laurie (Lawrence D.) Wright, researcher and author John R. T. Davies, art editor Doug Murray, advertising and subscription manager Frank Owen, and promoter Jack Harvey all contributed to the production of issues. While members of the production team shifted somewhat over time, Wright, an east London record shop owner and electrical engineer, served as editor across all 38 years. Profiles of musicians, articles on the history of recording and the recording industry, discographies, aspects of recording collecting, reviews of recordings and reissues, book reviews, and much more formed the content of most issues. As noted in Wright’s obituary in Jazz Journal (May 2010), Storyville was not an academic publication but its articles were effectively peer-reviewed by a network of jazz researchers and musicologists which provided a stamp of authority upon published content.

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