Category: Genres

The only national publication devoted to traditional jazz, ragtime, and swing, The Syncopated Times, has persevered over the past decade, bringing with it a great deal of music history from these specific genres of music. Based in Utica and published by Andy Senior, The Syncopated Times looks to the future as the paper moves into the digital age.

In June 2015, Andy Senior found himself writing for The American Rag, which at that time was based in Apple Valley, CA and had been publishing for 20 years, the successor to an even earlier publication, The West Coast Rag.  In December 2015, Senior made an offer for the fading paper, which was “grudgingly accepted.” From there, Senior set out to relaunch the paper as The Syncopated Times, publishing from his home in Utica, where he has resided nearly his whole life. The first issue of the new paper was published in February 2016, and earlier this year was the publication of the 87th issue of The Syncopated Times.

Senior shares the origins of his interest in jazz:

I’ve had a lifelong interest in music and discovered jazz early on. After familiarizing myself with the music of my father’s generation (the Big Band era) I worked my way back into the earlier decades of the 20th century. I started collecting 78s when I was in elementary school, so I’ve been at this well over 50 years. In my teens I took up guitar and then piano, and wrote songs.

Starting in 1987, I worked for a decade as a piano technician in the Utica area. I performed locally as a pianist, a guitarist, and a singer-songwriter since the early 1990s. In 2005, I started RADIOLA!, a broadcast of 1920s-1930s pop and jazz on WHCL-FM at Hamilton College in nearby Clinton. In 2010 I began producing the program entirely at home with my own transfers and restorations of 78s, and posting it online. The program has been in sporadic production since I launched The Syncopated Times in February 2016.

Andy Senior

The pandemic led to the closure of many of the jazz festivals the monthly magazine counted on as advertisers, ultimately making a for-profit model no longer feasible. Senior has been covering losses since March 2020 out of his limited retirement savings.

A Go Fund Me has been set up, with a goal of $60,000, to support the launch of a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called Syncopated Media and allow the new organization to start with a large enough budget to sustain operations until further funding can be secured. This will allow for the Syncopated Times to expand beyond a monthly paper to cover the jazz scene and jazz history in visual and audio formats that engage a modern audience. While The Syncopated Times in print (and online at syncopatedtimes.com) will remain the core focus, the new organization will be able to secure grant funding to produce documentaries for YouTube, compile albums for Bandcamp, create podcasts, and resurrect Syncopated Times Radio. The Go Fund Me campaign is expected to run through the end of July.

To add to the broader jazz community, Senior intends to recruit a large and experienced board to pilot the new nonprofit and greatly extend their reach, especially into school and community music programs. This board will ensure that the future of professional coverage of traditional jazz, ragtime, and swing is not dependent on a single owner-operator, but a reflection of the community itself. Included in issues of The Syncopated Times are artist profiles, interviews, historical articles, columns, essays, CD reviews, book reviews, and concert and festival reviews. Articles vary in gravity, with humorous articles and scholarly pieces mixed in each issue.

In April 2022, The Jazz Journalists Association announced its class of 28 Jazz Heroes, among the honorees was Syncopated Times publisher Andy Senior.

Six years ago, Associate Editor Joe Bebco created SyncopatedTimes.com, a full-service website that archives all the editorial content of the paper and includes web-specific content, including hosting a revival of the much-loved Red Hot Jazz Archive. 

The Syncopated Times will retain a subscription model, but nothing will change for current subscribers. Please join NYS Music in supporting The Syncopated Times in their mission.