A postwar indie label that peaked early, issuing seminal recordings by Lowell Fulson and Ray Charles before folding at the dawn of the rock ’n’ roll era. It was founded in 1947 as Down Beat, leading to clashes with the famed jazz magazine and subsequent rechristening as Swing Time. Run by Texas-born, Los Angeles–based African American businessman and gambler Jack Lauderdale, it specialized in the jazz-inflected urbane blues styles favored by California–based artists of the period.
Lauderdale leased...