Ed. Note-Continuing the custom of having unusual slants on jazz and jazz criticism, Charles Miller '41, record critic for the Harvard Advocate and Boston correspondent for "Jazz Information," is guest columnist for this week.

Back in 1936, when a few clever press agents were turning jazz into a commodity by calling it swing, a young Frenchman named Panassic wrote a book called Hot Jazz, which immediately caused a minor intellectual revolution in certain circles. Formerly, jazz had been for the common herd; now, with the exception of an isolated group of die-hards, the old snobbish attitude was thrown over, and the literati took record collecting and jazz criticism under their collective wing.

If you're ever unfortunate enough to be buttonholed by one of these specimens, probably the first thing he'll tell corded since 1931. Why, after all, it you is that no good 'Jazz has been rejust goes without saying. These were the days when the jonky-tonks were so filed with smoke that you had to cut your way to the bandstand with a lawnmower and the plane was out of tune and all the keys were busted except two but oh boy, was old Clubfoot Moe inspired and inviolate and sensitive that night, J, of course) and wouldn't play for just because he loved Jazz (with a capital money, after all he had played on the riverboats with Fate Marable. Of course decided to get three square meals a day the payoff came when Bobby Hackett by joining Horace Heldt. That was the day when the critics fell by the dozens.

For a long time it's been my opinion-and perhaps I'm all wrong that the best jazz music you and I have never heard, has been recorded since 1931. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about the "jazz classics" where you have the privilege of paying a small fortune to hear Bud Freeman and Pee Wee Russell grunt into their respective instruments on a pretty label. I'm, talking about the records-six bits down-of the Count and the Duke, of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller, Bittle Holiday and Mildred Balley, Fats Waller and Frankle Newton, and a host of others.

Look at it this way. Since 1931, technicians have made great advances in recording facilities and acoustics, consequently enabling orchestra leaders to improve on the general quality and balance of the music they record. Nor have the arrangers been asleep. Fletcher Henderson didn't hit his stride until 1934. Since then not only he, but many others including Eddie Bauter, Mary Lou Williams, By Oliver, Eddie Durham and Glenu Miller, have turned out orchestrations that are a vast improvement on the jerky, jazzy arrangements of the twenties (Duke Ellington, of course, is an exception).

The advent of Chick Webb and Gene Krupa has revolutionized the style of every rhythm section in the country, so that today even a mediocre band like Jan Savitt's can cut any of the old Armstrong or Henderson groups as for as pure rhythm is concerned. Compare Fletcher's Sugarfoot Stomp with Savitt's and see what I mean.

In regard to the soloists, I think it's extremely unfair to call their music inferior to the work they did before 1931. I can enjoy Benny Carter's present-day work just as much as the stuff he played with the Chocolate Dandles; and Muggsy Spanier with his own outfit gives me as many kicks as Muggsy Spanier with the Mound City Blue Blowers.

I seldom agree with Mike about jazz. For example, he's not too fond of Artie Shaw's new band, while I think It's the biggest thing in dance music since Benny Goodman. But at least Mike will give me a very convincing argument as to why he doesn't like Shaw, which is something I could never do, nor could anyone else who has, for the past few years, written what passes as criticism, for the various Harvard publications.

A point on which I do strongly agree with Mike, however, concerns the functions of a critic, who, as we see it, has a definite duty towards his readers.