What exactly are the downbeat year books?

[Dmitry]

I haven't seen any, but - what are they?

[brownie]

Down Beat was issuing an extra yearend issue from the '50s on. The Yearend issue carried articles that were not in the regular issuesand carried more pages than the regular DBs. Not sure when the last one came out.

[Christiern]

I believe I have them all. They were hard-cover updates designed to make up for the fact that there was no annual publication of the Encyclopedia, and jazz was moving on. In a sense, they were mini EOJs, started with an edition covering 1956.

Here's what the 1957 book contains:

• An intro by John Hammond.
  
• Jazz U.S.A. - A summary of events since the last publication, including sub-divisions devoted to: Radio, Books, Television, and The Movies.
  
• Jazz Overseas - Update on overseas jazz activities, with Benny Green reporting on England, Daniel Filipacchi on France, Carl-Erik Lindgren on Sweden, and Joachim Berendy on Germany.
  
• Jazz and Classical Music - a piece by Bill Russo
  
• Jazz and the Other Arts - a report by Martin Williams
  
• The Jazzman as Critic: The Best of the Blindfold Test - Subdivisions are: Early Jazz; Reactions to Louis Armstrong; Reactions to Duke Ellington; Foreign Musicians; Eddie Condon's Comments; Reactions to Dave Brubeck; The Great Ones; Battle of the Sexes (Leonard was always a polarizer - CA); Quid Pro Quo; Reactions to Stan Kenton; Across the Fence(reactions to non-jazz); and Miscellany..
  
• Meet the Critics - EOJ-style bios of 29 critics, complete with their addresses.
  
• International Polls - The results of nine jazz polls conducted in the U.S., UK, France, Germany, and Holland during 1957 and 58.
  
• Biographies Bios of musicians who either were inadvertently left out of the EOJ or "have risen to prominence." There are about 200.
  
• Jazz and the Phonograph - A history of recording (with focus on jazz) by Charles Graham. This includes a Chronology of Phonograph Recording from 1877 to 1959.
  
• Where to Find Jazz on Stereophonic Tapes - A list of 14 companies that have issued such.
  
• New Faces, New Horizons - Broken down by instrument and function (i.e.male/female vocalist) this is merely some poll results that show who's gaining on whom. Here Leonard also includes a piece on Band of the Year: The Newport International Band, and a loosely structured opinion poll of the band's members, whose bios follow.
  
• Jazz Organizations, Schools and Record Companies - A listing with addresses.
  
• How to Reach the Stars - A listing of the principal booking agencies handling jazz artists and the artists they handle.
  
• Bibliography - Broken into the following categories: Recent Criticism and History; Fiction; Criticism, History and Fiction in Recent Paper-backed Reprints; New Periodicals.
  

And that, Dmitry, should give you an idea of what the EOJ Yearbooks were all about, and it was only after entering all that information that I realized my mistake--you were asking about the down beat yearbooks! Sorry, but I'll let this post stand just in case it is of interest to someone. Worn out like an old yearbook, I'll leave it to another member to answer your question.

Edited October 31, 2003 by Christiern

[Rooster_Ties]

Just like politicians in political debates...

...just give some huge, long-winded answer that doesn't even begin answer the question that was actually asked.

[Christiern]

But is there not value in an answer to the unasked question?

[Dan Gould]

I sure enjoyed it. After all, isn't it the journey and not the destination?

[GA Russell]

Chris, what's your opinion, if any, of Martin Williams?

[Christiern]

Chris, what's your opinion, if any, of Martin Williams?

I had great professional respect for Martin, and we got along very well; I was on his guest list when he threw get-togethers, and we frequently had phone conversations, but he was in many ways an odd person. People told me stories about his bitterness, etc. Here's a personal experience I had with the odd side of Martin:

When I ran a NYC radio station, he called me and said that he wanted to sell his TapeSonic tape deck. When I agreed to buy it for the station, he told me that he needed to make deal right away and he wanted cash. I told him that we didn't have enough cash on hand and reminded him that the banks were closed. He said he didn't want a check, but finally agreed to take one when I assured him that the station never bounces checks (I had a very strict and detail-conscious bookkeeper).

Martin wanted the check right away, so I agreed to send it via my assistant engineer, who had a car. It was all done in such a hurry that the check went off without my signature. Well, when he saw that, I apologized and said "send Tom back with the check, and I'll sign it."

Martin swore that I had done this deliberately and there was nothing I could say to convince him otherwise! I reminded him that I was essentially doing him a favor, but he insisted that I was trying to pull something on him.

I gave up, and didn't hear from Martin for a few years, not until my Bessie Smith biography was published and he sent me a very complimentary note after reading it. After that, when he moved to Washington, and the Smithsonian, our relationship returned to normal.

Martin new jazz inside out, but his scope became somewhat limited with the advent of the so-called avant garde.

[JSngry]

One cool thing about the later Yearbooks was that they published full scores. I've got one that's got Quincy's "Killer Joe" chart off of WALKING IN SPACE in it.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

DB Yearbooks were summaries of the previous year's events. Around 100 pages, they included a limited index of that year's issues (better than nothing, but by no means comprehensive) and had photos, articles, etc. that were new. Most had big band scores or solo transcriptions. Discographies too. A lot of the articles tended to be "Looking back" or "Looking forward" type of things. Also listings of record labels, agents, etc.

Dan Morgenstern told me that he pleaded to the publisher to have the Yearbook included in subscriptions (even as an optional item) but was refused. They were strictly newstand items. They are frequently overlooked sources of info but are well worth checking out.

Oh - and the year on the cover (e.g. "Music 63") is the FOLLOWING year - the index included covers 1962.

Mike

[GA Russell]

Thanks Chris. There was something about his writing style that appealled to me when I was a teenager. Can't tell you why, but I felt his columns in Downbeat had the ring of truth.