Word: downbeater
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...which for two years championed jazz music seriously and articulately against the superficial blandishments of its commercial by-product. With an elaborate 100-page issue, replete with the discriminating record reviews, glorifications of underrated musicians, and other features which set it apart from the slick, snappy trade papers like Downbeat and Metronome, Jazz Information bowed out in the grand manner. And Gene Williams, who had run the magazine single-handed through most of its career, settled back to repair his broken health and hope some other fanatic would start another paper to play the same part...
This, with the added attraction of swelegant looking Kay Foster (voted by Downbeat to have the best looking legs in the business) and who, in my humble opinion, does a very good Job of Imitating Mildred Bailey, should make for a pleasant evening...
...Downbeat critic George Avakian (of Yale) picked the tunes and the musicians, supervised the recording and wrote the notes for the album. In short, thanks to Avakian, the musicians themselves, the Chicago tradition, and the courage of Decca in producing what many thought at first to be saleable only to a small group of enthusiasts, the public can get an album of playing in the true Chicago tradition. More than that, it can get a sense of jazz as it is really played at late-of-night sessions in out of the way bistros and honky-tonks. This is great...
...above mentioned "Honeysuckle" and a carbon copy of Rex Stewart's (trumpet) solo effort with Duke Ellington. Still another example of how Benny is forsaking nerve-racking power house for honest-to-goodness swing. "Memories of You" by the Sextet is equally good....Tommy Dorsey, having won the Downbeat Sweet poll, is beginning to play more good swing than he ever has before. "Easy Does It" is a worthy successor to the platter of "Stomp It Off" that Tommy did several months ago. An original by former Luncefordite Sy Oliver, it swings easily and tastefully....Jimmy Dorsey has always been...
...iron-grey hair flying, his firm jaws clenched, Conductor Artur Rodzinski mounted a podium in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center one day last week, and with a brisk downbeat of his baton started a new orchestra through its paces. He soon exclaimed: "Marvelous! The strings are fantastically fine. ... I doubt if there has ever been assembled anywhere, at any time, a new orchestra that promises so much for the future...