The record changer (Jan-Dec 1952)

5 editorial on staying alive for ten years There is something awe-inspiring about coming to the end of a decade. Since we live in a world that measures most things in multiples of ten, the rounding-out of a ten year span has a highly satisfactory fullness to it which is actually something of an illusion. Nothing really does break itself off into ten-year chunks (or into any other handy units) ; gradual changes, shifting trends, ebbs and flows all create their own calendar. We know this as well as you do, but nevertheless there is something about completing a decade. To say that the Record Changer has lived through ten years is imposing enough (when you consider how short-lived most jazz magazines turn out to be). But when you realize that the entire history of recorded jazz covers very little more than three decades, this birthday looms even larger. All of us, we suspect, have a tendency to let the present drift by without paying too much attention to it — "the past; ah, that was the important period ; but there's nothing much going on nowadays." Then, quite suddenly, an identifiable milestone of time comes along, and you realize with a start that something new has been added to the "past." That's about the way it was with us. We almost literally woke up on our anniversary year to discover that there are now three full decades of recorded traditional jazz behind us, that to the fairly carefully documented and mulled-over categories labelled The Twenties and The Thirties we must now add The Forties. And since the Record Changer has spent the past ten years doing its best to be the spokesman for this jazz, we consider it quite fitting that we offer you a capsule view of the decade. There will undoubtedly be, at some future date, documentary works that will do for this period of time what several books have done for earlier eras in jazz. Let this issue, then, serve as some Notes for a Future Documentary, giving, we hope, some feeling of the unique and special qualities of the era. In this issue you will find what we consider the outstanding article (for one reason or another) of each of the Changer's ten years; the most important jazzman and most significant record of each year; and a gleaning of the events and personalities that characterized each of these years. There are also full-length articles in which leading jazz writers, and the editors, analyze some of the major trends and happenings in various aspects of the jazz field. There is also a selection of personal "dogma" — we felt you'd be interested in our naked, unvarnished opinions on jazz subjects (not your opinions, or our writers', or the polite things we say in company, but the way we bluntly feel — seriously and facetiously — about a lot of things), and this issue seems the logical time to tell you about it. This also seems the logical time — and this editorial the logical place — to run through the history of the Record Changer, with particular attention to its unique record of longevity: ten years of life in a field that has seen a vast number of magazines die very quick deaths. The Changer started out as the quite inadvertent result of a record-hunting trip taken by two Virginians: Gordon Gullickson and Don Wilson. These collectors decided, one fine day, to pile into a car and scour the South for the many precious items that, in those days, must have just been lying around waiting to be picked up. They returned with a load of thousands upon thousands of discs, and found that they were actually considerably overloaded. So they began sending out mimeographed the record changer AUG.-SEPT. VOL. II, No. 8 & 9 editor-publisher managing editor circulation art editor bill grauer, jr. orrin keepnews jane grauer paul bacon record lists to fellow collectors in all parts of the country, offering for sale or for auction their duplicates and the overflow from their shelves. They didn't know it, "but they were in the process of giving birth to a magazine. After a while, when they started to run out of records, they offered the use of their mailing piece to other collectors; for a very nominal fee anyone could list his records on the long sheet that was merely titled "Wilson and Gullickson." By the middle of 1942, apparently realizing that they had gotten into a business, they made things a bit more formal. They switched to the offset reproduction process, and they gave the sheet a name: simply and aptly, "The Record Changer." (The first issue to bear this name, a lengthy, folded-many-times-formailing, single-sheet, is reproduced in part on page 6.) After that came the gradual, almost accidental evolution of a magazine. Wilson having removed himself to the West Coast, it was virtually a one-man operation, but the tireless Gullickson proved equal to the task. The Changer became a small booklet, still largely record listings, but with an occasional column of comment by the publisher. In 1943 began the first important editorial matter, Roy J. Carew's series of "New Orleans Recollections" (see page 8). It was followed by many others, and gradually this periodical, expanding and growing more stable through a boom period for record collecting and trading, became a fullfledged literary jazz magazine. By 1945, the year which saw the dimensions increased to their present size, many noted jazz writers were either making or solidifying their reputations in the pages of the Changer. Carlton Brown, Ernest Borneman, Charles Edward Smith, Fred Ramsey, Roger Pryor Dodge, Rudi Blesh, Nesuhi Ertegun, George Avakian, Eugene Williams, and many others were regular contributors. Since the very early issues, the covers had been the work of a most impressive jazz artist, Don Anderson ; at the start of 1946 he moved off in other directions and Gene Deitch (who had casually written Gullickson to ask if he might submit some art work) took over. Deitch's covers, and his weird and wonderful cartoon creation, The Cat, became staple items in the Changer for the next five years. (Continued on Page 39' ) The Record Changer is published monthly by Changer Publications. Inc., 125 La Salle St., New York 27, N. Y. and is copyrighted 1952 by Changer Publications, Inc. 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