Down Beat Music
- Place of Publication: Chicago, IL
- Language: English
- Date of Publication: 1957-1963
- Periodicity: Annually
- Editors: Don DeMicheal, Don Gold, Gene Lees & Jack Tracy
- Publishers: Maher Publications
- Lacunae: Yearbook for 1956 (vol. 1). A copy of issue could not be located.
- Type: Full Text
Down Beat’s contribution to the 1950s vogue for jazz yearbooks was Down Beat Music, where each volume contained the year of publication in the title, e.g. Down Beat Music ‘57, and each volume summarized the previous year. In the first volume, Down Beat Music ‘56,1 the publisher Norman S. Weiser sought to use the yearbooks to summarize all of the music covered by the various music magazines published by Maher Publications, which then included Down Beat (jazz), Up Beat (an occasional educational supplement to Down Beat), Record Whirl (recordings), and Country and Western Jamboree.2 Coverage thus spanned jazz, popular song, Hollywood, radio and recording stars, high fidelity, television, classical music, Broadway, blues, rock n’ roll, folk and country music. (Later issues provided little coverage of country and western.) Each volume ran to some 130 pages.
Each year featured certain recurring themes: an editor’s introduction followed by a chronological summary of the previous year. Articles on aspects of music in the past year – new performers, publications, technology, trends – were often followed by articles looking forward to the forthcoming year(s). Roundtables on topics such as jazz criticism, jazz progressivism, and/or education are regularly found. The first three years feature an extensive list of short biographies of prominent musicians and persons on the jazz scene. Writers included the Down Beat regulars, along with other prominent jazz writers who wrote more regularly for other publications. Copious photography is found throughout.
Down Beat Music changed titles to the [Down Beat] Music Handbook in 1974 and this ran until 1980.
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1 Volume 1, not previously found in RIPM Jazz, will be available in 2026. Curiously, exceedingly few of this volume are extant in libraries, archives, and among collectors.
2 Maher also published a number of unrelated Spanish-language magazines. A full list can be found on the table of contents page of Down Beat Music '56.