Down Beat's Yearbook of Swing
- Place of Publication: Chicago, IL
- Language: English
- Date of Publication: 1939
- Periodicity: Annual
- Editor: Paul Eduard Miller
- Publishers: Down Beat Publishing Co.
- Type: Full Text
A single issue of Down Beat’s Yearbook of Swing was published in 1939. With an introduction by Fletcher Henderson, celebrating the strides made by swing and jazz generally, and a very brief editor’s note by Carl Cons, the rest of the content was written by Paul Eduard Miller, writer for Down Beat and later editor of Music and Rhythm (1940-1942) and Esquire’s Jazz Book (1944-1947). Miller sought to create a reference volume for swing and jazz as it was practiced at the end of the 1930s. He divided his subject into seven chapters: (i) “Milestones,” a history of jazz; (ii) “Little sessions,” on musical aspects of swing and hot jazz, (iii) biographies of “the men of jazz” (though he includes some women as well), (iv) selected recordings, (v) estimated values of collectable records, (vi) a vocabulary of swing terms, and (vii) a bibliography.
Although Down Beat did not immediately publish further yearbooks , Esquire resumed this practice with its yearbooks starting in 1944.