Customer Reviews

The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings: Ninth Edition

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

...before I go any further, it should be said that Cook and Morton's jazz guide is absolutely essential, a wonderfully witty book that is both a tremendous reference and an unbelievably fun tome to just open at random pages and start reading. I was terribly sad to learn that, between the eighth and ninth editions, Richard Cook passed away. Morton's affectionate obituary -- done as a PGTJ review -- is quite touching and amusing.

If you are new to the Penguin Guide, this is a great an edition to start with as any. The core information remains valid and reasonably up to date, and the prose -- knowledgeable, candid, humorous, and snippy -- is as engaging and delightful as ever. Longtime Penguin Guide connoisseurs, however, may be confused by some of the revisions and decisions that went into this edition. Before I begin knitpicking (and I'm only halfway through it), please let me say that all of what is below is marginal and in now way a reflection on the overall quality of the book. Buy it...

Now for the small stuff.

While a lot of mistakes have been ironed out of the last edition (mostly copy-editing-type errors), there are still annoying inconsistencies, especially with accidentally crediting, say, a piano player with bass in the personnel listings. Also, there is a lot of weird inconsistent spacing in the columns. A small complaint, perhaps, but Cook and Morton work with limited space, and any mis-handled space is wasted space that could be filled with more of their great writing. In general, the copy-editing continues to disappoint me.

Also, check out Bobby Previte's bio entry -- it seems to actually be a review from a different section of the book. C'mon, Penguin editors!

More confusing, however, is what the authors have decided to reinstate and remove. Morton makes it clear in his forward that they have had delete entries of somewhat marginal figures whose discographies have not grown of late. Understood...and yet:

- Michael Mantler, yanked from the last edition, is back in, although he has not released anything new (actually, he's put out a best-of that was not included in his entry).
- Terje Rypdal, who HAS released new music since the last edition and remains a major figure in European improvised music, is now mysteriously out.
- In an situation that repeats itself many times in the book, entries for artists like Rod McGaha and Steve Masakowski are re-inserted, having been deleted from the previous edition, despite having no new releases. This is just seventh-edition text repeated for no good reason. Meanwhile, Jeff Coffin has released two new albums, but his entry has been deleted.

Cook and Morton seemed to have missed some key new releases, too, such as the PSI reissue of Evan Parkers "Topography of the Lungs." On the upside, Blossom Dearie finally gets an entry.

This book is a big ol' organic thing, and such maddening inconsistencies are really petty in the grand scheme. Don't listen to me -- buy the book and listen to Cook and Morton.

I have been acquiring The Penguin Guide to Jazz since the 4th Edition. The Ninth is an excellent continuation to the best publication for Jazz Collectors and new converts.
What is great about The Penguin Guide is that it serves the collector audience as well as being the best guide for those who has been bitten by the Jazz bug but who are seeking a road map for what is a brand new immense universe.
For the 2000+ CD Jazz collector, the exhaustive amount of information isn't gathered together and structured better in any other book built for the same purpose. The format which includes all of the necessary details such as dates, players, labels and locations fuels the avid collectors need for information. Without a doubt, recordings are presented that even the most thorough collector has missed or is reminded of in the Guide.
Of course, the funnest part of this colossal book is the rating system. The star system with the peppered Crown scoring is both affirming and maddening, i.e. how could McCoy Tyner's, "The Real McCoy" not be granted a crown but some other lesser (in my opinion) album get the award. But the surprises are also great. A friend of mine sent me a copy of Steve Harris & Zaum's, "Above Our Heads The Sky Splits Open" a few months before I ordered the Ninth Edition. My friend from Texas noted that he thought this might be one of the best contributions to Improvisational Jazz in recent years. Finding it in the new edition rated as a Crown record was a high point.
Of course, any avid Jazz fan will find artists not represented. Albert van Veenendaals absence particularly surprised me.
All in all, this companion is 99% perfect and essential for anyone who considers themselves a fan of the greatest music.

p.s. I am curious about any future plans to convert the Guide to an interactive software/DVD format ?!

Of course this is a great reference, and with each edition, it gets better. Neophytes should not be scared off by the massiveness of the book. In fact, it's Core Collection and Four-Star-Plus-Crown features make it a good place to get an overview of jazz, and sort out what to buy from the thousands of jazz recordings available.
One thing to keep in mind, though: reviews, no matter how authoratative, are opinions. Some of the four-star recordings here are ones that I wouldn't give a second listen to. Some of my all-time favorites rate only 2 or 3 stars. Not that I'm right, but tastes do differ. On the whole, I think there is a bias toward the more experimental, avant-garde recordings. This actually makes for a good counterpoint to the hatchet job Ken Burns and Wynton Marsalis did in their PBS series, but still, it is a bias.

I always look forward to the new edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz, and Cook and Morton don't disappoint this time around. By this point, there's no need for me to comment on the quality of the reviews -- they are consistently well-informed, thoughtful, pithy, and with any dash of sarcasm always undercut by genuine affection and reverence for this music. This is essential for any jazz lover -- be he/she a neophyte or someone already waist-deep in the music.

Their are some formatting developments in this edition. The index, absent from the last edition, has returned. I was pretty shocked and disappointed when it didn't make it into the last edition. They have introduced an "In Brief" section at the end of entries, which wraps up minor albums in an artist's ouevre. Generally it focuses on less essential titles -- works that are adequate but not spectacular -- and leaves the body of the entry to cover the highs and lows. Not a bad thing.

I will say that this edition suffers from poor copyediting. Some albums appear twice in the artist entry, and some sentences are clearly missing nouns/verbs/adjectives. Compared to the golden standard of previous editions, this is a bit disturbing.

And I guess Cook and Morton finally succumbed to all the nay-sayers who said that Michael Mantler is not jazz -- he is out of the book. That's too bad...

When I got the book, I looked up 50 or so jazz CDs I have either recently purchased or have considered purchasing and less than 50% were covered, although none were recently released! Similarly, many of the listed CDs are NOT readily available in the US. CDs listed are heavily slanted toward European releases, a vastly disproportionate percentage of the reviews are for the French Melodie Jazz Classics series. Since many older tracks are often gathered in similar "Best Of" type releases, it would have been possible to cross check existing compendiums by track title, but the only track listings are for a few specific tracks on a CD in the text of the review. So... for a book that is supposed to be a buyers guide, it falls far short in completeness. Well, it is published in the UK, and is probably a lot more useful there.

All that said, the reviews that are there are usually interesting, sometimes even enlightening. Unlike most efforts of this kind, the personnel listings for each CD (at least the ones I checked) seem complete and accurate. The capsule biographies manage to capture a lot about each artist in a concise form my old journalism teacher would have admired. While the highest rated CDs are mostly great choices for a beginning jazz library, there are two many levels of quality amongst the four star (highest rating) choices. On the plus side, the reviewers do deal with remastering sound quality, a significant issue particularly with older material.

The editors omitted most CDs which would have garnered 2 stars or less. I would have preferred a more aggressive paring down of the entries, eliminating perhaps most 3 star CDs, in order to discuss the really good ones in more detail and with track listings.

Jazz is a many splendored thing, and it is very nice to have such a comprehensive review of titles currently in print. You won't find a better compendium anywhere. For some reason jazz continues to remain a veiled subject. Few on-line sources go beyond the mainstream, but Richard Cook and Bryan Morton cover a tremendous amount of territory, taking in jazz from around the world, not just Hard Bop and contemporary fusion. They cover the artists down through the years, noting which are the most important CDs to help you round out your collection. They provide many trenchant observations and clue you into new artists, as well as uncover a few gems from the past that are back in print. It is best to hold onto back copies because the authors only cover what is currently in print, so selections vary from edition to edition.

What an excellent tool this is--as well as a fine read. There are plenty of omissions, some potentially infuriating, but anyone who follows the numerous editions of this will already have resigned to that loss at the expense of accommodating everything else. And, anyway, a complete catalog of all jazz would be (at least somewhat) beside the point, not to mention virtually impossible. This is a catalog of a selection of all the great jazz out there. And it's absolutely essential. There is quite simply no other reference that even comes close to matching this one in regards to information, accessibility, and passion. It's a platform for discovery. Hopefully (Richard Cook, RIP), this edition won't be the last.

Various editions of this book has been my guide to jazz for over 10 years and in some funny way I feel like I know the authors personally. Of course, I don't but it was no less sad to hear that Richard Cook died of cancer a week ago at the not very old age of 50. Jazz and jazz lovers have lost a great friend and promoter. My sentiments to all who did know him.

All reviews of CD's excellent, but they always have to exclude many from previous editions in order to keep current edition not too large. Why not have a CD rom available that includes all reviews and also made available to Kindle users!
Arnie Fox

If you have older editions of this you may want to leaf through this latest edition before purchasing. In order to save space they have eliminated many recordings that were reviewed in previous versions. Betty Carter, Bill Charlap and Grant Green are a few examples of artists that have been short changed here in my opinion. It seems a bit ridiculous to publish a book of reviews in this day and age. "All Music Guide" is online and as a result more up to date. They may not have a written review for every release in an artists discography but at least they list it and rate it. AMG seems to be more generous in it's ratings and reviews than Pengiun. As some other reviewers noted Penguin is really looking for that ground breaking release rather than another rehash of the same old standards. The reviewers at Downbeat seem to have a similar perspective. I appreciate that because as a result I now enjoy listening to many European "avant garde" artists that I may have never known about otherwise. "All About Jazz" is another online source for reviews but their philosophy seems to be "if you don't have anything nice to say....."

As always tastes vary. I am a sucker for that ECM sound and I eagerly (and unobjectively!) anticipate the next release from their stable of artists. Enrico Rava, Keith Jarrett, Tomasz Stanko, Terje Rypdal and Charles Lloyd can do no wrong in my book but the Penguin Guide always brings me crashing back down to earth with it's *** and **(*) ratings of some of my favorites!