 Artie Shaw on the cover of the September 1949 issue | |
| Categories | music magazine |
|---|---|
| Founded | January 1885 (Vol. 1, No. 1) |
| Final issue | December 1961 (Vol. 78, No. 12) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Metronome was a music magazine published from January 1885 to December 1961. [1] [2] [3]
Bandmaster Arthur Albert Clappé (1850–1920) first published The Metronome in January 1885 for band leaders. [lower-alpha 1] [4] [5] In 1891, Harry Coleman (1845–1895), a Philadelphia music publisher and publisher of a monthly music magazine The Dominant, invited Clappé to become its editor. He accepted, and Carl Fischer (1849–1923) took over The Metronome as publisher until 1914. Violinist Gustav Saenger (1865–1935) succeeded Clappé in 1904 as editor and also continued as editor of the Musical Observer – also published by Fischer. Saenger continued as Metronome's editor until 1928.
Metronome began to shift away from classical music in the 1920s, when it featured a "Saxophone Department," an instrument family that, by then, had become a symbol of American popular music. In 1932 – Doron Kemp Antrim (1889–1961), editor from 1928 through 1939 – the magazine's tagline read "For Orchestra, Band, Radio and Motion Picture Theatre Musicians." [6]
Edgar Bitner (né Edgar Franklin Bitner; 1877–1939), who headed Leo Feist, Inc., after its founder's death, was, according to author Russell Sanjek, a Tin Pan Alley pioneer, who, with Julius P. Witmark and Nathan Burkan (1878–1936) (a founding father of intellectual property law), was one of ASCAP's honorary pioneer members. As a sideline, after retiring from Feist in 1936, Bitner took over publishing of Metronome and the Musical Courier, both of which his son, Edgar, Jr. (1912–1966), took over after his death. [7] [8]
Beginning with the swing era, Metronome focused primarily on the genre of Jazz music appealing to fans. Writers for the magazine were its co-editors, Leonard Feather and Barry Ulanov; Miles Davis cited them as the only two white music critics in New York to understand bebop. [9]
George T. Simon, editor-in-chief from 1939 through 1955, sometimes wrote articles under the pseudonym Jimmy Bracken. He was a drummer. He changed the magazine's focus from articles on instrument-making and publishing to items about recordings and the noted big-band leaders of the day.
Bill Coss (né William Hungerford Coss, Jr.; 1925–1988), editor-in-chief from 1956 through 1960 – had earned a bachelor of science degree from Boston College in 1951. He was editor-in-chief of Jazz Today.
Metronome, under financial duress, was set to close after the December 1959 issue, but, in the words of author John Gennari, they "won a reprieve when photography editor Herb Snitzer prevailed upon his wife's uncle, Robert Asen, buy the defunct [ sic ] publication. Resuming operation under the leadership of Snitzer, editor Dave Solomon, and art director Jerry Smokler [né Herbert Jerold Smokler; born 1935], Metronome became, briefly, a hip, avant-garde publication that surrounded its jazz coverage with cutting-edge Beat literature, ... "politically-charged cartoons, and other innovative visual material." [10]
Asen was Metronome's publisher and Milton Lichtenstein was president of the underlying publishing firm, Metronome Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RMC Associates in New York founded in 1953 by Robert Hyman Asen (1910–1993), Milt Lichtenstein (né Milton Julian Lichtenstein; 1919–2005), and Charlie Sargent (né Charles Edmund Sargeant; 1903–1967). [11] Saving Metronome was not RMC's primary mission. The primary mission of RMC's personnel was to serve as manufacturers' representatives and field engineers in (what some referred to as) the most concentrated territory in the world for electronic instrumentation and engineering component markets. RMC's clients included Hewlett-Packard, Western Electric, Bell Telephone Labs, Sperry Gyroscope, and Grumman Aircraft Engineering – and also unique clients such as the United Nations, Les Paul, and Mary Ford. [12]
Asen, in December 1960, hired new managing editor David Solomon (1925–2007), who had been an editor at Esquire and Playboy in the 1950s.
"Trouble came in July 1961 when a cover photograph of a Coney Island female stripper [and an accompanying article by Snitzer with more provocative photos] raised the ire of high school librarians, five or six-hundred of whom cancelled their subscriptions. Solomon was fired, Dan Morgenstern took over, and the magazine reverted to straight jazz coverage." [10] [13]
The final issue of Metronome was printed in December 1961 (Volume 78, No. 12). [2]
Metronome magazine conducted an annual poll during the years 1939-1961 [14] to choose the musicians whom their readers considered as the top jazz instrumentalists, for that year, playing each instrument. Often, the Metronome organization recorded the all-stars on a regular basis, with recording sessions of the bands chosen in 1939-1942, 1945–1950, 1953, and 1956. [14]
In many cases, the all-stars group recorded two songs, with short solo performances, from nearly all of the participants. [14]
In 1940, Metronome magazine organized the Metronome All Star Nine, including Harry James, Jack Teagarden, Benny Carter, Jess Stacy, Charlie Christian and Gene Krupa. [15]
The all-stars band had several name variations: Metronome All Star Nine; Metronome All Stars; Metronome All Stars 1956; The Metronome All-Stars; or Metronome Allstars. [14]
The following artists were inducted into Metronome's Hall of Fame series. According to jazz musician and Metronome contributor George T. Simon, the series "was designed to recognize sidemen, not leaders", but "quite a number of these sidemen eventually wound up as leaders". [16]
An earlier publication, The Metronome: A Monthly Review of Music, was published in Boston by White & Goullaud from April 1871 to May 1874 → Ambrose W. Davenport, Jr. (1838–1906), Editor, assisted by his brother, Warren Davenport (1840–1908). LCCN sf91-92226; OCLC 809454726(all editions). [34]
Billie Holiday was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made a significant contribution to jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
Throbbing Gristle were an English music and visual arts group formed in Kingston upon Hull by Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, later joined by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson and Chris Carter. They are widely regarded as pioneers of industrial music. Evolving from the experimental performance art group COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle made their public debut in October 1976 in the COUM exhibition Prostitution, and released their debut single "United/Zyklon B Zombie" and debut album The Second Annual Report the following year. P-Orridge's lyrics mainly revolved around mysticism, extremist political ideologies, sexuality, dark or underground aspects of society, and idiosyncratic manipulation of language inspired by the techniques of William S. Burroughs.
Black Swan Records was an American jazz and blues record label founded in 1921 in Harlem, New York. It was the first widely distributed label to be owned, operated, and marketed to African Americans. Founded by Harry Pace with W.C. Handy, Black Swan Records was established to give African Americans more creative liberties. Eighteen months earlier, in 1919, the Broome Special Phonograph Records was the earliest label owned and operated by African American George W. Broome in Medford, Massachusetts, featuring Black classical musicians including Harry T. Burleigh and Edward Boatner. Black Swan was revived in the 1990s for CD reissues of its historic jazz and blues recordings.
Martina Michèle "Tina" Weymouth is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and a founding member and bassist of the new wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club, which she co-founded with her husband, Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz. In 2002, Weymouth was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Talking Heads.
The Casa Loma Orchestra was an American dance band active from 1929 to 1963. Until the rapid multiplication in the number of swing bands from 1935 on, the Casa Loma Orchestra was one of the top North American dance bands. With the decline of the big band business following the end of World War II, it disbanded in 1947. However, from 1957 to 1963, it re-emerged as a recording session band in Hollywood, made up of top-flight studio musicians under the direction of its most notable leader of the past, Glen Gray. The reconstituted band made a limited number of appearances live and on television and recorded fifteen LP albums for Capitol Records before Gray died in 1963.
The Wire is a British music magazine publishing out of London, which has been issued monthly in print since 1982. Its website launched in 1997, and an online archive of its entire back catalog became available to subscribers in 2013. Since 1985, the magazine's annual year-in-review issue, Rewind, has named an album or release of the year based on critics' ballots.
David Hall was a sound archivist and writer.
James Harvey Robinson was an American scholar of history who, with Charles Austin Beard, founded New History, a disciplinary approach that attempts to use history to understand contemporary problems, which greatly broadened the scope of historical scholarship in relation to the social sciences.
Hugues Panassié was a French critic, record producer, and impresario of traditional jazz.
The Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra was written by Igor Stravinsky in Nice between 1926 and 1929. The score was revised in 1949.
George Thomas Simon was an American jazz writer and occasional drummer. He began as a drummer and performed in this role in early versions of Glenn Miller's orchestra. He wrote about that orchestra in 1974 with Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, known for being the most comprehensive writing on Glenn Miller and his big band.
Will Friedwald is an American author and music critic. He has written for newspapers that include the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Village Voice, Newsday, New York Observer, and New York Sun – and for magazines that include Entertainment Weekly, Oxford American, New York, Mojo, BBC Music Magazine, Stereo Review, Fi, and American Heritage.
Brian Arthur Lovell Rust was an English jazz discographer.
The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound is a reference work that, among other things, describes the history of sound recordings, from November 1877 when Edison developed the first model of a cylinder phonograph, and earlier, in 1857, when Léon Scott de Martinville invented the phonautograph. The first edition – Guy Anthony Marco, Phd (editor), and Frank Andrews (1920–2015) – was published in 1993. The second 2-volume edition, published in 2005, spans one hundred forty-seven years of recorded sound. Frank W. Hoffman, PhD, of Sam Houston State University is Editor and Howard William Ferstler of Florida State University is Technical Editor.
Robert Earle Spencer was an American trombonist and leader of a progressive swing big band bearing his name — Earle Spencer and His Orchestra. He formed the band in 1946 and disbanded in 1949. The band recorded for Black & White Records — a label so named by its founder, Les Schreiber, to reflect the races of its recording artists.
Jazz Journal is a British jazz magazine established in 1946 by Sinclair Traill (1904–1981). It was first published in London under the title Pick Up, which Traill founded as a locus for serious jazz criticism in Britain. In May 1948, Traill, using his own money, relaunched it as Jazz Journal. Traill, for the rest of his life, served as its editor-in-chief. Jazz Journal is Britain's longest published jazz magazine.
Tim "Mit" Schuller(néFredric Thomas Schuller; Salem, Ohio – 29 February 2012, Dallas, Texas) was an American, Dallas–Fort Worth-based music critic, who, for 37 years – from 1975 until his death – chronicled living blues and jazz musicians, mostly from Texas.
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Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review (PMR) was an American magazine for record enthusiasts founded in Jamaica Plain, Boston, by Axel B. Johnson. The first issue was dated October 1926 – three years, six months after the first issue of Gramophone, a similar magazine founded in London by Compton Mackenzie. As put by George Wilson Oman (1895–1947) – an Edinburgh-born Chicago-based telegraph operator and organizer of the Phonograph Art Society of Chicago – "This magazine is to the United States what the Gramophone is to Great Britain and bids fair in its splendidly edited pages to rival the Gramophone." The magazine ran for 66 issues – six and one-half years – ending March 1932, under financial duress during the Great Depression. Although, the suspension of the April and May 1932 issues has been attributed to, according to Gramophone magazine, "a misfortune of which we have only just heard from an American reader." "He says that the Editor, Mr. Axel Johnson, was kidnapped late in March, 'robbed, beaten unconscious and thrown from a speeding automobile.'" PMR – through the succession of Music Lovers' Guide (1932–1935) and The American Music Lover (1935–1944) – is considered the forerunner to the American Record Guide.
. 72 (19). Nielsen Business Media: 31. Retrieved June 7, 2022– via Internet Archive.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) OCLC 701053921(all editions) {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help){{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help){{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) OCLC 832430092. . 24. New York University School of Law: 36. Retrieved June 8, 2022.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) OCLC 41417547(all editions), 935217972. . RIPM . Retrieved June 8, 2022.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) (alternate link via Internet Archive) . 1988. ISBN 978-0-19-802127-8. OCLC 960166150(all editions) . 15 (8). Elkhart, Indiana: Review Printing Company: 7 (column 3, paragraph 2). Retrieved June 8, 2022– via Google Books (University of Minnesota).{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) LCCN unk84151931 ; OCLC 475893370.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) LCCN 62-2882; LCCN 45-35142; OCLC 605544108(all editions) (reprint by Greenwood Press). 
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