The first issue, dated September 8, 1939, was a four-page newsletter that was mimeographed late one night in the back room of the Commodore Music Shop in Manhattan at 46 West 52nd Street.
[1] In July 1940, Jazz Information, went from a newsletter to a little magazine format, hip pocket in size with modest typesetting.
[3][4][5][6] Stephen W Smith, editor of the Hot Record Society Rag, leaned towards what then was progressive jazz.
[9] Bill Russell, while gathering material for Jazzmen in 1938, discovered long forgotten New Orleans trumpeter Bunk Johnson on a farm in New Iberia, Louisiana.
And, with Eugene Williams, editor if Jazz Information in New York; and Dave Stuart (né David Ashford Stuart; 1910–1984), owner of the Jazz Man Record Shop in Hollywood, traveled to New Orleans and made the first recordings of Bunk Johnson.