Down Beat
- Place of Publication: Chicago, IL
- Language: English
- Date of Publication: 1934-1963
- Periodicity: Monthly, 1934-1939; bi-weekly, October 1939-[1979]
- Editors: Glenn Burrs, Carl Cons, Don DeMicheal, Don Gold, Gene Lees, Jack Tracy, Hal Webman & Ned E. Williams
- Publishers: Albert J. Lipschultz, Down Beat Publishing Co., Maher Publications
- Numeration Irregularities: Vol. 14 (1947) skips nos. 26-27; Vol. 29 (1962) skips nos. 15-19; Vol. 30 (1963) skips nos. 6, 18-22. Beginning with volume 23, subscription cards were often included in issue pagination, particularly in volumes 28-30. Two cards were included per issue, one appearing between pages 8 and 20 and a second appearing between page 30 and 45. When available, we have scanned these cards and included them in the full text of the issue. However, given that many were discarded by readers, not all cards could be found and reproduced. Therefore, some issues may seem to lack four pages; these four missing pages are, in fact, the discarded subscription cards.
- Type: Full Text
This introductory text treats the years currently found in RIPM Jazz, 1934 to 1963. Should additional years be added, this text will be extended.
Down Beat (also known as Downbeat or stylized as down beat) is both the primary American chronicle of jazz history across nearly a century, but also the model / inspiration / instigation for so many other publications, demonstrating the often symbiotic relationship of jazz journalism to the music itself.1 Publishing continuously since 1934, Down Beat has documented and discussed all aspects of jazz, contemporaneously and retrospectively; bore witness to jazz’s intersections with race and politics; reflected the tastes and opinions of critics, musicians, and audiences; promoted the importance of music education; and provided a venue for the music trades and recording industry. In short, it provided a window onto a vast area of American musical history. In its more self-assured periods, it referred to itself as “The Musician’s Bible”; in more self-conscious times, it morphed with audience tastes. Its founding demonstrated a growing need for a focused publication on jazz, and it set a formula for others to copy, criticize, and attempt to supersede. Yet, while numerous imitators and competitors came and went across nearly a century, Down Beat continued to stand, belonging to a very small and select club of near century-long publications.2
Founding through the 1930s
A full history of Down Beat would in many ways simply repeat the marvellous, if somewhat boosterish, history of the publication by John McDonough, found in Down Beat’s sixty year retrospective volume.3 Its founding can be seen as a very mid-twentieth century American story: Albert J. Lipchultz, a failed saxophone player, wanted to create a newspaper to connect Chicago musicians so he could market insurance to them. His interest in the music was secondary at best; this aspect he left to his associate and fellow ex-saxophonist, Glenn Burrs. As McDonough demonstrates, this arrangement could not last. When James C. Petrillo, president of Chicago American Federation of Musicians Union (Local 10), discovered Lipschultz’s “empire building,” Lipschultz was forced to withdraw, with Burrs assuming control by early December 1934.4
Shortly after, Burrs hired Carl Cons, a writer, pianist, later jazz club owner whose editorial stylings shaped Down Beat until his departure in 1942. Cons immediately provided Down Beat with reader-grabbing, sensationalistic headlines and cheesecake photography, undoubtedly helping to grow readership and to differentiate Down Beat from its more staid competitors, Metronome and The Orchestra World. While Down Beat in this era certainly contained a certain amount of fluff and hype, Cons and Burrs began to attract numerous serious young writers whose sustained influence would be significant in the jazz world, including Helen Oakley, Stanley Dance, Marshall Stearns, Les Paul, John Hammond, Paul Edward Miller, Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, Fred Ramsey, and George Avakian. Hammond, who would go on to a storied career as a record producer for Columbia Records, was in the 1930s writing for Melody Maker and The New Masses with a politically activist, pro-Black musician perspective. Miller was similarly declaring jazz’s roots to be Black and supporting the cause of Black musicians. Through this collection of writers, Down Beat quickly assumed a more sensitive and progressive position on racial issues than many publications.
By the end of the 1930s, Down Beat had developed a growing national presence, with a circulation of some 80,000 per issue.5 Dave Dexter, previously a staff writer, moved to New York to further Down Beat’s presence in New York which was quickly becoming the center of the jazz world. In 1940, Down Beat acquired Tempo in Los Angeles, allowing for an increased coverage of Hollywood and the West Coast scene. Regular correspondents documented musical activities from Boston (“Beantown”) to Pittsburgh (“Smokeville” or “Smoketown”), Kansas City (“Cowtown”) to Milwaukee (“Beertown”) to San Francisco (“Golden Gate” or simply “Frisco”).6 The first side projects also appeared at the turn of the decade, starting with the magazine Upbeat (1938-1939) which focused on music education, and then Down Beat’s Yearbook of Swing (1939) which was Miller’s first attempt at an annual, summary publication. Finally, starting in 1940 many of Down Beat’s writers also moonlighted at Music and Rhythm, an unofficial side project created to pad the pockets of many Down Beat writers and to take Cons’ editorial stylings to another sensational level. This led to conflicts with Burrs and in 1942, Burrs cleaned the editorial house, with Cons and Dexter leaving to join the US Army and new arrivals Ned Williams and Mike Levin hired to replace them, respectively.
1940s to 1963
The 1940s saw a series of changes to Down Beat. Jazz began to morph musically from big bands and swing during the war to a very different landscape afterwards, of smaller groups, bebop, the rise of Hollywood, and popular vocalists. These shifts could be summarized by the July 1949 contest to rename jazz, in order to better reflect the new range of music and listeners. (The winning name was “Crewcut.” The others – interesting and ridiculous – are noted in the footnote below.7) New writers in this decade included Ralph J. Gleason (previously of Jazz Information) and Charles Emge (former editor of Tempo). During the war years, financial difficulties from depressed advertising and increased printing costs squeezed the publication’s margins. After the war, these problems only increased, forcing many issues printed on poor-quality paper and printer bills piling up. In 1950, Down Beat’s longtime printer John Maher purchased his delinquent account and made a series of changes to financially right the ship.
The 1950s continued the changes in listener taste, now with the rise of country and western (or hillbilly as it was initially known), folk, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll. Many of these caused occasional panics by Down Beat writers and editors. Some of the headlines in this era certainly exemplify this: “Hillbilly boom can spread like the plague” (Emge), “Elvis is awful, but I love him” (Don Freeman), and “Musicians argue the values of Rock and Roll” where Billy Taylor declared it to be “musically trite.” Milt Hinton added “The kids accept rhythm and blues as music, but it’s actually a lower stage of music.” Quickly, though, Down Beat began to cover all of these genres, introducing regular columns on each, reviewing records, publishing articles, even publishing separate magazines.8 While Down Beat had always provided some space for classical (“longhair”) music and other genres, by the 1950s Down Beat began a slow transformation into a more broad music periodical. Jazz would always be primary but not exclusive.9
This perhaps reflected a new sensibility at Down Beat since Maher’s purchase. Subscriptions had fallen to 40,000 by 1953 and Maher was bringing about a series of changes which would have a long effect. First, new writers began to appear, including Leonard Feather (with his famous “Blindfold Test” column), Nat Hentoff, Bill Russo, John S. Wilson, and Steve Allen (who later left to found The Tonight Show on NBC). A 1958 change in format to a proper magazine (from a tabloid newspaper) assisted with distribution and sales. Special issues, devoted to specific themes such as instruments or a specific topic, were introduced and reappeared annually. The annual polls—critics and listeners—gave awards to musicians and albums with the participation of readers. The Down Beat Hall of Fame extended these laudations. A focus on jazz education, especially in high schools and colleges, helped to grow younger readership and to attract more advertising from music instrument manufacturers and colleges. Partnerships with jazz festivals began. A Japanese edition was inaugurated in 1960. In short, Down Beat began to be involved in all aspects of the jazz economy.
The 1950s and early 1960s were also the era of the growing civil rights movement. Long a critic of Jim Crow and Crow Jim, and a supporter of the Black music and musicians from the 1930s onwards, the Civil Rights era presented Down Beat with editorial and business challenges. Maher became aware of the increasing risk of representing a music for which many of the important musicians, especially those of the new generation, were Black. According to McDonough, when a Black musician would be featured on a cover, copies often would be returned to the publisher bearing racist obscenities. The business risk to Down Beat concerned Maher and his editors during this period—Gene Lees, Charles Suber, Don DeMichael, Dan Morgenstern—leading them to refer to him as the Old Man.10 Fights amongst the editors and ownership were regular. Alongside racial issues, the rise of rock music, and changes in the listening tastes of young audiences, had a profound impact upon the magazine, as documented by Matt Brennan.
The chronology of this introduction will be continued when additional years of Down Beat are made available in RIPM Jazz.
1 Indeed, John Maher, Down Beat’s publisher, would later keep a list in his wallet of all those publications which began and ceased while Down Beat continued. See fn 5.
2 Members of this select club include Jazz Hot (Paris, 1935-); Melody Maker (London, 1926-, which began as a jazz journal and expanded in the 1960s); and Orkester Journalen (Stockholm, 1933-).
3 Down Beat. 60 Years of Jazz. Edited by Frank Alkyer (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1995). John McDonough provides an introductory history (pages 6 to 17), followed by short histories by decade, contributed by different writers.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 RIPM has created equivalences for as many city names we could identify.
7 Other “winners” included: Amerimusic, Jarb, Freestyle, Mop, Novaclassic, Pulsemusic, Memerhythm, Le Hot, Dix-e-bop, Hip, Id, Sock, Swixibop, X-tempo, Ragtibop, Blip, Beatpoint, Idoism, Ameratonic, Improphony, Schmoosic, Syncorhythm, Beatfelt, Syncope, and Reetbeat.
8 For instance, Country and Western Jamboree
9 One need only examine Down Beat’s subtitles: “The Bi-Weekly Music Magazine” in the 1960s, “Jazz - Blues - Rock” in the early 1970s, “The Contemporary Music Magazine” / “The Magazine of Contemporary Music” in the later 1970s and early 1980s, and “For Contemporary Musicians” in the 1980s.
10 McDonough, 15.
“Race relations, sexual equality, unionism, wars, recessions, birth, life, death, the triumph of the will, the battle of the soul: it spills across the pages of Down Beat. The writers serve as a Mount Rushmore of jazz journalism, but the opportunity to read about Ellington, Armstrong, Miles, Bird, Dizzy, Coltrane, Brubeck, Eldridge, Lester Young, Ella, Lady Day–all the greats–to hear them talk about their lives and their careers–in their voices–that’s what paints a lasting picture, and delivers a glimpse inside the artist’s world. That’s the essence of Down Beat. It’s a magazine for jazz musicians, written by jazz musicians and the best jazz journalists in the world. Everyone who gets involved, from the musicians to the writers to the photographers, does so with an amazing dedication to the art form of jazz and the craft of making a great jazz magazine. It’s magic.”
Frank Alkyer and Ed Enright, ‘Down Beat’ The Great Jazz Interviews (2009)