Who listened to big band music?

Teen doing homework & listening to Dorsey

 It's easy to think of adults being the prime listeners to big band music during its heyday, roughly 1938 to 1942, give or take, maybe because we have a memory of grandparents listening to it.  It's reasonably easy to imagine them as middle-aged people, but not so easy to imagine them as high-schoolers, but that's who was listening the most to Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, et al.  Sometimes they were called subdebs, sometimes bobby soxers (although that phrase belongs more to the late 1940s early 1950s) and sometimes the now-standard teenager.

The radio was a common way to listen to the tunes of the day, but so was hanging out at a juke joint, feeding nickels to the record machine and dancing the Lindy Hop or jitterbugging.  

But juke joints had an unsavory reputation and were often infested with lowlifes. And, of course, bars had juke boxes, but teens didn't go to bars. Record stores, however, allowed you to listen to records before deciding to buy or not and you could hang out with your friends all evening if you wanted to.  It was safe to walk home after dark in the America of that era, but should trouble arise there was always a cop walking his beat nearby.

Of course, you could always invite your friends over for a platter party, playing your collection of 78s and dancing with each other to "Chatanooga Choo-Choo" or "Stardust."