The Jazz Review on a Winter's Day

I met the composer, musician, author, educator, Gunther Schuller a few years ago at a celebration of his music at The Ohio State University. I re-read (in) his The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz (1930-1945) very often. I asked him when we might expect his sequel to The Swing Era on the modern, bebop era. He said that there would be no sequel; but there would be a lot of interesting bits in his (then) forthcoming autobigraphy, Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty (2011). Fortunately there is a lot of Schuller's wisdom in the pages of The Jazz Review that was founded bu Nat Hentoff, Martin Williams and Hsio Wen in 1958. Because The Jazz Review was too good, it ceased publication in 1961. When I was in high school, in Highland Park, Michigan, I subscribed to it and Down Beat. The Jazz Review was far superior to Down Beat. The latter could have been edited by Walter Winchell or published by Rupert Murdoch. The Jazz Review was dedicated to informing an educated reader about creative music from Jelly Roll Morton to Ornette Coleman. Down Beat was dedicated to such non-musical events as Billie Holiday's arrest at her hospital bedside - I've never been able to rid myself of Down Beat's sordid account. Since Lady Day's death in 1959, I've never paid any attention to Down Beat - musically it's still worthless, nothing is better than it.
  I spent today reading and looking at back issues of The Jazz Review. Gunther Schuller's long review article on the Blue Note, Prestige and Riverside recordings of Thelonious Monk is precious. Ethan Iverson's blog, Do The Math http://dothemath.typepad.com/ is in the tradition of The Jazz Review.
  The Jazz Review is available on line: http://jazzstudiesonline.org/?q=node/206 This should get one through the winter and beyond.