Jazz: The Essential Companion to Artists and Albums

I like CDs and this provides fail proof couple of recommendations for every artist. Amazing breadth of coverage.

i bought rough guide to soul for myself last year and couldn't put it down. so i am going out on a limb by glorifying rough guide to jazz so readily. but i feel safe in this. and i hope my dad really likes it--it was his birthday gift this year! guess what? he liked it!!!

This volume has been around under various titles & editions for several decades; essentially what it does is serve as a continuation of Leonard Feather's essential encyclopedias of jazz in the 1960s and 1970s, since the format & aims are roughly the same. Like Feather's books, this book is an alphabetical listing of musicians, both well-known leaders and underrecognized sidemen who rarely get more than passing references in other books on jazz. The text is peppered with often excellent photos. There is also a useful appendix of a glossary of terms--really, these are highly idiosyncratic & polemical miniessays on terms like "blues", "swing", "fusion" & c--they're usually very entertaining though sometimes a little dubious or debatably accurate.It's probably not coincidence that two of the most useful companions to jazz are by British authors--besides this volume I'm thinking of course of the Cook/Morton _Penguin Guide_. The nonAmerican perspective permits some distance from stylistic wars (between mainstream and avantgarde jazz, between jazz and fusion, & c) & also means that both books pay a lot more attention to jazz from Europe and other continents.That said, just like Cook/Morton, this book does have its quirks, & while I mostly find Cook & Morton's quirks charming, the oddities here get on my nerves a bit more. The principal authors here are an odd lot. Trumpeter Digby Fairweather handles early jazz & swing, & British trad--these are some of the most enjoyable entries in the book, as he communicates his enthusiasm for even half-forgotten figures via pithy character-sketches & anecdotes. Pianist Brian Priestley & trumpeter Ian Carr handle the contemporary music, & this leads to some odd imbalances as Carr is considerably the windier & more superficial writer. Pages on pages are devoted to Carr's heroes--Miles Davis & Keith Jarrett are given entries vastly longer than anyone else's, with virtually every recording they ever made listed as recommended listening-- & Carr inserts entries for what can seem like virtually every musician he's ever worked with. Meanwhile the entries on free jazz & free improvising musicians are an odd mixture of plain description (spiced with errors--the Evan Parker entry has a small raft of them), rather moderate doses of appreciation & frequent spots of carping & condescension. Carr also has a few set phrases that turn up again & again ("the music breathes" & "the shock of the new" are the main ones). The worst juxtaposition here is between the insultingly brief & tepid entry (by Priestley) for Bill Evans, & the vastly longer & more fulsome entry by Carr for Keith Jarrett--ouch.Anyway, despite all the quirks of the book I can hardly give it less than 5 stars, simply as it provides a lot of information you can't get elsewhere, is always clearly written & is easily used. Like the Cook/Morton tome it makes for very entertaining & illuminating browsing.

Like all guides that intend or claim to be definitive references to their subject matter, this falls short to an extent, and will not please everyone. However, along with other companion books, this is a great reference guide to jazz artists and styles.

The Rough Guide has been an essential component to anyone's jazz library, but the rapidly evolving face of the music had made the previous edition seem dated in just a few short years. Fortunately, the editors have given this superb revision, which gives space to some current jazz innovators, such as Chris Potter and Dave Douglas. They've also made successful attempts to cover figures not granted attention in the previous version, namely Bela Fleck, Al Di Meola, and Marcus Miller. Other entries get beefed up a little. For instance, Dave Holland's discography is expanded to include his current "Prime Directive." Already important, this revised version is much more concise and current--highly recommended.

I enjoyed this book because of its widespread coverage of both American and international jazz musicians. It's an excellent musical resource which has a place in my music library alongside with such user-friendly guides as "World Music: The Rough Guide" and "The Brazilian Sound."