Jazz Journal

About Jazz Journal

Jazz Journal is Britain's longest-enduring jazz magazine — a monthly journal specialising in straight-ahead and mainstream jazz, published non-stop since 1948. Founded by Sinclair Traill, who relaunched his Pick Up magazine as Jazz Journal in May 1948 with his own money and served as its editor-in-chief for the rest of his life, it concentrates on UK jazz artists while also covering international artists. It is aimed squarely at jazz enthusiasts and is available through subscription.

In April 2009 Jazz Journal absorbed its rival Jazz Review, and since May 2009 it has been published under editor Mark Gilbert — the last editor of Jazz Review, who had earlier served as deputy editor of Jazz Journal International.

Founded May 1948 by Sinclair Traill

Eric Sinclair Traill (1905–1981) was a British publisher, chief editor and music critic of jazz. His career began in 1946, when he launched Pick Up as a locus for serious jazz criticism in Britain. In May 1948, Traill, using his own money, founded Jazz Journal — jazz historian Roberta Schwartz states it was not a new publication but a name change for Pick Up — and for the rest of his life served as its editor-in-chief. The first issue was Vol. 1, No. 1, May 1948.

Traill was also a founding director of Britain's National Federation of Jazz Organizations, formed under the auspices of Melody Maker in June 1948 to protect and further jazz interest in Britain.

Britain's Longest-Enduring Jazz Magazine

Jazz Journal is Britain's longest-enduring jazz magazine — published non-stop since 1948, through every era of the music: bebop, cool, hard bop, free jazz, fusion and the modern British jazz renaissance. Its specialism has always been straight-ahead and mainstream jazz, concentrating on UK jazz artists but also covering international artists.

That longevity, through the booms and busts of the British jazz press, is the magazine's defining achievement: the journal that never stopped.

Ownership Across the Decades

Traill incorporated as Jazz Journal Limited in Enfield on 25 November 1953. Decca Records invested in the company in 1960 and sold its shares to Novello and Company Limited in 1970. Novello changed the name to Jazz Journal and Jazz & Blues for ten issues in 1974, and leased the magazine three times: to Cardfront Limited (a Billboard subsidiary) in April 1977 — when it became Jazz Journal International — and to Pitman Press in 1979, when guitarist Nevil Skrimshire became editor.

Eddie Cook purchased Jazz Journal Limited in instalments beginning in 1982, moving the magazine above The Canteen Jazz Club in Covent Garden. Cook was publisher and editor-in-chief from 1978; after the death of his wife and associate editor Janet Cook in January 2009, he wrote to readers that publication would cease and the magazine was seeking a new owner.

The Jazz Review Merger, 2009

In April 2009, Jazz Journal's holding company absorbed the rival magazine Jazz Review — originally a monthly, then published every two months, owned by Direct Music Limited of Edinburgh, which wished to end its publishing interests. Jazz Journal was first published in its new form in May 2009 under Mark Gilbert — the last editor of Jazz Review, stepping in as editor of the new Jazz Journal.

In October 2009, Sarah Moy, daughter of Eddie Cook, donated materials from the magazine's Loughton offices to the National Jazz Archive in Loughton — preserving the paper trail of six decades of jazz journalism.

Editorial Scope

The journal specialises in straight-ahead and mainstream jazz, concentrating on UK jazz artists but also covering international artists. Its journalism — reviews, interviews, features, discographies and criticism — serves the serious jazz enthusiast: the reader who wants depth, knowledge and authority rather than hype.

Many of the magazine's covers have been designed by Cal Swann, the British designer, typographer and educator — giving the journal a distinctive visual identity to match its editorial character.

Jazz Journal Today

From Sinclair Traill's Pick Up in 1946 to today's monthly journal, Jazz Journal has been the continuous thread of British jazz criticism for over 75 years — the magazine that documented the music from the trad boom to the present day.

Under Mark Gilbert, published non-stop since 1948, it remains what Traill intended: the locus for serious jazz criticism in Britain.

Seven Decades in Print: The Web-Only Turn

After more than seven decades in print, Jazz Journal became a web-only publication on 19 January 2019. The print run that had begun in May 1948 came to an end, and the magazine continued entirely online at jazzjournal.co.uk, where it has been sustained by a team of around thirty writers. The transition preserved what had always been the magazine's core business: serious, regular criticism of new jazz recordings.

The online journal publishes around fifty new-recording reviews each month, alongside news, features, interviews and the obituary coverage for which the print magazine was long respected. The archive of the old website remains accessible at archive.jazzjournal.org, preserving the digital record of the title's final print years.

The move mirrored the wider fate of specialist print music journalism in the twenty-first century, but it also gave Jazz Journal a second wind: freed from print costs, the journal could publish more reviews, more quickly, than the monthly schedule had ever allowed. What Sinclair Traill began with his own money in 1948 continued, in a new medium, as the longest-running conversation about jazz in Britain.

The Cook Years and the Canteen Jazz Club

One of the most colourful chapters in the magazine's ownership history began in 1982, when Eddie Cook acquired Jazz Journal from its then publishers, paying in instalments. Cook's stewardship gave the magazine one of the most evocative addresses in British jazz journalism: its offices sat above The Canteen Jazz Club in Covent Garden, so that the business of writing about jazz was conducted within earshot of the music itself.

The Cook era followed a decade of corporate ownership — the magazine had been incorporated on 25 November 1953, had taken investment from Decca in 1960, been sold to Novello in 1970, and passed through the hands of Cardfront/Billboard and Pitman in the late 1970s — and it returned the title to something closer to an enthusiast's enterprise. Eddie Cook's tenure lasted until the end of the 2000s: after the death of Janet Cook, the magazine was presumed to have ceased publication in January 2009, closing a chapter that had begun more than a quarter of a century earlier.

The offices above the Canteen became part of the magazine's legend — a reminder that for all its longevity and its learned reputation, Jazz Journal was always, at heart, a musician's and fan's paper, written close to the music it covered.

Mark Gilbert: From Deputy to Editor

The man who carried Jazz Journal through its twenty-first-century transformations was Mark Gilbert, who had been deputy editor of the magazine from 1981 to 1999 before stepping in as editor in May 2009. Gilbert, a leading British contributor to the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz who has written for other jazz histories, brought both scholarly authority and deep institutional memory to the role: few people knew the magazine — or the music — better.

Gilbert presided over the end of the print era. The December 2018 issue was the last print edition; from 19 January 2019 the magazine continued entirely online at jazzjournal.co.uk. The publisher's statement on the move promised continuity: 'The new Jazz Journal website continues the tradition of the print edition and will develop over time an archive holding material from the last seven decades of publication. Initially, at least, it will be a free to view service.'

The magazine's own description of itself is a proud one: the oldest English-language magazine dedicated to the coverage of jazz music. Online, it provides a rolling jazz news and review service, with columns and features added on a roughly monthly cycle — the print tradition, in Gilbert's phrase, continuing in a new form, sustained by the team of around thirty writers, several of whom have written for the magazine since the 1980s.