RIPMJAZZ
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Swing Music

A single issue of Swing Music was published in December 1939. Edited by Timme Rosenkrantz, and with Inez Cavanaugh as Associate Editor, Swing Music reflected the ascendence of swing and big bands in the late 1930s, an era in which numerous periodicals were dedicated to the genre. The striking cover image – a grid of 48 photographs of Fats Waller, overlaid with a larger image of Waller caught in a moment of surprise, captioned on page 3 as “that incorrigible, incredible incubator of insensate inanities” – is one of the more remarkable jazz journal covers in this period.

Timme Rosenkrantz (1911-1969) and Inez Cavanaugh (1909-1980) were business and personal partners. Rosenkrantz was a Danish-born aristocrat who would later have a long career as a jazz journalist; Cavanaugh was a Chicago-born African-American journalist and singer. In the editorial of Swing Music they announce their arrival in New York from Chicago seeking to publish a magazine unlike other swing magazines. Many musicians are profiled, including Muggsy Spanier, Bud Freeman, Emile Christian, Coleman Hawkins, Frank Froeba, Will Bradley, Willie “The Lion” Smith, The Savoy Sultans, Charlie Teagarden, Sidney Bechet, and Joe Sullivan. Harry Lim contributes an article on jazz in the Batavia, Dutch East Indies (present day Jakarta) and record reviews appear in the “Platter Parade” column. Minimal advertising, mostly concerning performance venues, appears. No reason is given for the journal’s cessation, although Rosenkrantz and Cavanaugh were fairly nomadic in this period. [See Donald Clake's Music Box.] 

Big Bands