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Talk about information by the pound. This hefty volume has everything you were afraid to ask for. Indispensible reference for any true Jazz fan. I will wear it out using it.
You know the musician, but you don't know how to start savouring his music. This is the book. The most extensive guide on jazz records, year by year. Excellent.
Brian Morton and the late Richard Cook are as legendary as some of the jazzmen they write about, and this 9th Edition of the Penguin Guide will only increase their stature. You can imagine what happens when you drop the sucker. Yes, there are omissions here, but what do you expect when the edition is already 22,000 pages long.The problem with the words -- brilliant, moving, wrong-headed, and at times very funny -- is that they are contained within a book that's about as easy to carry around as your average concrete cinder-block. Match the weight with the tissue-like pages and well. (And you'll be dropping it a lot).I would say this is the perfect bathroom book, except if you place it on your lap you'll never be able to stand up again.Buy it anyway. :-)
And it's absolutely essential. 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. What an excellent tool this is--as well as a fine read. There is quite simply no other reference that even comes close to matching this one in regards to information, accessibility, and passion. 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. It's a platform for discovery. Hopefully (Richard Cook, RIP), this edition won't be the last.
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
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