Down Beat

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Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm that it exclusively covered in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the "downbeat" in music also called the "one beat" or the first beat of a musical measure.

Down Beat publishes results of annual surveys of both its readers and critics in a variety of categories. The Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame includes winners from both the readers and critics poll. The results of the readers' poll are published in the December issue, those of the critics' poll in the August issue.

Well known features of Down Beat magazine include its "Reviews" section where jazz critics, using a '1-Star to 5-Star' maximum rating system, rate the latest musical recordings, vintage recordings, and books; articles on individual musicians and music forms; and its famous "Blindfold Test" column, in a which a musician listens to records by other artists, tries to guess who they are, and rates them using the 5-star maximum rating system. Musicians that get 50% right on the "Blindfold Test" do better than average.

Down Beat went to a monthly schedule in April 1979, the first time since 1939.

1 Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame
2 Down Beat Jazz Album of the Year
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame

The Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame is maintained at Universal Studios' City Jazz club in Orlando, Florida. Current membership, by year, is listed in the following table. The critics' poll was not initiated until 1961, so there are only readers' poll winners before then. Although they have many members in common, the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame is separate and distinct from the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.

Year	Readers Poll	Critics Poll
1952	Louis Armstrong^[1]
1953	Glenn Miller^[2]
1954	Stan Kenton^[3]
1955	Charlie Parker^[4]
1956	Duke Ellington^[5]
1957	Benny Goodman^[6]
1958	Count Basie^[7]
1959	Lester Young^[8]
1960	Dizzy Gillespie^[9]
1961	Billie Holiday^[10]	Coleman Hawkins
1962	Miles Davis^[11]	Bix Beiderbecke
1963	Thelonious Monk^[12]	Jelly Roll Morton
1964	Eric Dolphy^[13]	Art Tatum
1965	John Coltrane^[14]	Earl Hines
1966	Bud Powell^[15]	Charlie Christian
1967	Billy Strayhorn^[16]	Bessie Smith
1968	Wes Montgomery^[17]	Sidney Bechet & Fats Waller
1969	Ornette Coleman^[18]	Pee Wee Russell & Jack Teagarden
1970	Jimi Hendrix^[19]	Johnny Hodges
1971	Charles Mingus^[20]	Roy Eldridge & Django Reinhardt
1972	Gene Krupa^[21]	Clifford Brown
1973	Sonny Rollins^[22]	Fletcher Henderson
1974	Buddy Rich^[23]	Ben Webster
1975	Cannonball Adderley^[24]	Cecil Taylor
1976	Woody Herman	King Oliver
1977	Paul Desmond	Benny Carter
1978	Joe Venuti	Rahsaan Roland Kirk
1979	Ella Fitzgerald	Lennie Tristano
1980	Dexter Gordon	Max Roach
1981	Art Blakey	Bill Evans
1982	Art Pepper	Fats Navarro
1983	Stéphane Grappelli	Albert Ayler
1984	Oscar Peterson	Sun Ra
1985	Sarah Vaughan	Zoot Sims
1986	Stan Getz	Gil Evans
1987	Lionel Hampton	Johnny Dodds, Thad Jones, Teddy Wilson
1988	Jaco Pastorius	Kenny Clarke
1989	Woody Shaw	Chet Baker
1990	Red Rodney	Mary Lou Williams
1991	Lee Morgan	John Carter
1992	Maynard Ferguson	James P. Johnson
1993	Gerry Mulligan	Edward Blackwell
1994	Dave Brubeck	Frank Zappa
1995	J. J. Johnson	Julius Hemphill
1996	Horace Silver	Artie Shaw
1997	Nat King Cole	Tony Williams
1998	Frank Sinatra	Elvin Jones
1999	Milt Jackson	Betty Carter
2000	Clark Terry	Lester Bowie
2001	Joe Henderson	Milt Hinton
2002	Antonio Carlos Jobim	John Lewis
2003	Ray Brown	Wayne Shorter
2004	McCoy Tyner	Roy Haynes
2005	Herbie Hancock	Steve Lacy
2006	Jimmy Smith	Jackie McLean
2007	Michael Brecker	Andrew Hill

[edit] Down Beat Jazz Album of the Year

An essential contribution of the critics' and readers' polls are the selections for "Jazz Album of the Year", listing the dozen or so most popular records.
2006 critics' poll:
(1) Andrew Hill: Time Lines (Blue Note)
(2) Wayne Shorter Quartet: Beyond The Sound Barrier (Verve)
(3) Sonny Rollins: Without A Song (The 9/11 Concert) (Milestone)
2007 critics' poll:
(1) Ornette Coleman: Sound Grammar (Sound Grammar)
(2) Trio Beyond: Saudades (ECM)
(3) Sonny Rollins: Sonny, Please (Doxy)