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Collection Data
- Description
- Metronome, an American magazine published from 1885 to 1961, is most known for its run from the 1930s onward as a publication for jazz fans and listeners, and for its production of "Metronome All-Stars" recordings. The magazine's library of photographs, dating from 1917 to 1996, documents the American jazz and popular music industry from the 1930s through the 1950s. The collection features hundreds of musicians, band leaders, vocalists, entertainers, and media and music business figures, including Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, Gene Krupa, Count Basie, Harry James, and Louis Armstrong.
- Names
- Metronome Corp. (Creator)
- Metronome Corp.
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1917 - 1996
- Library locations
- Music Division
- Shelf locator: JPB 24-1
- Topics
- Armstrong, Louis, 1901-1971
- Basie, Count, 1904-1984
- Ellington, Duke, 1899-1974
- Goodman, Benny, 1909-1986
- Herman, Woody, 1913-1987
- James, Harry, 1916-1983
- Kenton, Stan
- Krupa, Gene, 1909-1973
- Metronome All Stars
- African American musicians
- Big bands
- Jazz
- Jazz musicians
- Metronome
- Genres
- Clippings
- Contracts
- Correspondence
- Photographs
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: Metronome magazine began publication in 1885 as a resource for leaders of wind bands. By the early 1930s, it had shifted away from its classical music roots and had begun covering the popular and jazz music scenes, and aimed mainly at musicians working in dance orchestras, bands, theaters, radio, and film. Over the course of the 1930s and into the 1940s, it again shifted from being an industry magazine for professionals into a more fan-based publication documenting bands and musicians, particularly as the Swing era greatly expanded the numbers of both working musicians and jazz listeners. The writer George T. Simon, who became the editor in 1939, was instrumental in this transition. By the mid-1940s and the advent of modern jazz, the magazine was home to two of the most bebop-friendly critics, Barry Ulanov and Leonard Feather. Simon was succeeded as editor in 1955 by Bill Coss.
Metronome conducted annual reader polls starting in 1939 (it was the first jazz magazine to do so), and in many years it sponsored recording sessions featuring the poll winners, released under variations of the title "Metronome All-Stars." In the 1950s, it also published "yearbooks," end-of-year publications highlighting major musical developments and the most successful and popular musicians.
By the end of the 1950s, the magazine was failing. After a brief, unsuccessful reorganization, during which it was remade in the style of Esquire and Playboy magazines, it attempted once again to focus on jazz under the editorship of Dan Morgenstern. But the company could not be saved, and the final issue of Metronome was published in December, 1961.
Following the dissolution of the company, the president, Milton J. Lichtenstein, and treasurer, Robert Asen, took custody of the magazine's photograph library. To pay for storage space, they began renting out access to the library, a business Asen maintained through the 1960s and 1970s. Eventually, Asen's son, Robert Scott Asen, took over management of the library. In 1996, Asen entered an agreement with Archive Photos to represent and market the Metronome photographs.
- Content: The Metronome magazine photographs, dating from 1917 to 1996, document the American jazz and popular music industry from the 1930s to 1961 through photographs of hundreds of musicians, band leaders, vocalists, entertainers, and media and music business figures. The collection also holds a small amount of papers documenting the rental of the magazine's photograph library in the decades following the end of publication in 1961, and content indexes.
Major figures appearing in the photograph files include Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, Gene Krupa, Count Basie, Harry James, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Barnet, June Christy, Nat King Cole, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee, Bud Powell, Buddy Rich, Max Roach, Artie Shaw, Frank Sinatra, and Lester Young.
- Physical Description
- Extent: 22.67 linear feet (52 boxes)
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Identifiers
- Other local Identifier: JPB 24-1
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b23386521
- MSS Unit ID: 186321
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): f97c3840-409a-013d-bf35-0242ac110002
