Music: Jazz Hunters

Jazz, a lovechild of respectable music, has never lost its vagrant ways. Because pure jazz is always improvised and therefore not written down, recordings are the only way to preserve it. With thousands of the early disks lost or destroyed, many bygone jazz greats are no more than legends today. A new company called Riverside Records is now making things considerably easier for seekers after the oldtime gospel. It has obtained rights to Chicago’s 30-year-old, pioneering Paramount and Gennett catalogues, is busily transferring the best numbers to durable LPs. Result: some of the earthiest jazz heard in captivity anywhere. Best of the lot: some really gone blues by Singer Ma Rainey, known as the teacher of more famed Bessie Smith, and eight stomping numbers by Fats Waller, most of them previously available only on oldtime piano rolls.