Rating: 
Summary: From AALY Trio to Zubop, the essential guide
Review: Few books are really essential, but no jazz lover could do without Richard Cook and Brian Morton's mammoth guide. Weighing in at just under two kilos (around five pounds) and just a slim CD short of 2000 pages, this is not an easy book to read in bed but it is one I constantly turn to when listening to jazz or (even better) buying CDs.The book is set out alphabetically by musician or group -- from the AALY Trio ("... the sound of the quartet in full flight has a harsh, narcotic edge to it") and thousands of CD reviews later ends with Zubop ("vigorous British post-bop outfit"). Each disk is rated on a scale from one to five stars -- a very select number receive a 'crown' rating -- and there is generally a short biography of the musician and group. What I have found in using the Penguin Guide over several years is that Cook and Morton's reviews are reliable guides to the quality of CDs both musically and of the technicalities of recording. Their judgements are informed, humane, and understandable and they add greatly to one's knowledge and enjoyment of the music. In their introduction Cook & Morton recommend against just buying CDs that rate five stars or a crown, but for people new to jazz that is a guaranteed way to build a collection of great music. Morton and Cook will probably be working on the sixth edition of the guide right now. Can they improve on this already highly impressive work? They admit they are struggling already with the sheer volume of new material. One option would be to produce two volumes. I would like to see a thin 'supplement', say of the 'top 2000', which one could take CD shopping without needing a suit-case to lug the whole book. The rating system could also be reviewed. There are almost no one-star and very few two-star ratings. Most reviews fall between three and four-star with some five-star and a tiny number of crowns. Perhaps the authors should be marking out of ten to give greater discrimination. These are minor points, though. This is a wonderful book. Jazz lovers will happily browse for hours and CD buyers will start writing shopping lists. The Penguin Guide fully deserves five Amazon stars (and would get a crown too if that was available).
Rating:
Summary: masterpiece of British literature? you be the judge.
Review: I bought the Penguin guide 3rd edition in 1997. I have bought each successive edition and do not intend to stop. Never mind the occasional internal inconsistencies and prejudices, to which the authors confess freely and for which the readers of a 1500-page book should offer some forgiveness. I love the book because it is complete, its reviews are nearly always dead on, its biographies (5th edition) are a tremendous and welcome improvement, and its literary style is so cool. For my money, the Penguin guide is one of the treasures of the English language; the fact that it's about jazz elevates it completely out of the building. Read the excerpts; they sell themselves. On so many levels, this book can't miss. I'm looking forward to the 6th edition.
Rating: 
Summary: another good big resource
Review: It's interesting to compare these entries with those in the All Music Guide. Recommend both for interested readers.
Rating:
Summary: The best of its kind: witty, erudite, magnificent
Review: Many US readers complain that Cook & Morton are "biased" or that the book isn't helpful to them because there's a lot of material available in the US that isn't in Europe. The fact that this is the most well-written, coherent, tightly argued and wide-ranging reference book covering jazz CDs currently available in *any* world market seems to escape some of these readers. Of course it must be frustrating; but nothing is getting in the way of a scholar or two doing the same thing in the US... except perhaps for the existence and sheer authority of this very work. The AMG volume is the only contender, but its breadth is not quite compensated by the often dire quality of the commentary it contains. The accusation of "bias" is an interesting one - it presupposes the possibility of something called "objectivity". Of course the Penguin guide is highly opinionated; it's also full of wit, irony, wisdom and all the qualities that make great writing and criticism a joy to read. Criticism is after all nothing but cleverly expressed opinion. No other book helps you to make sense of the present and future of your jazz collection more ably and persuasively than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Good reference and a great read.
Review: This guide is well-written, often outright witty, and the authors certainly know their subject. Given that so much seminal music from this genre was poorly recorded, the efforts made to advise a prospective buyer of these issues are appreciated. I have only a few nitpicks: There are no reviews of compilations or multi-artist jazz soundtracks. Frankly, it would be very interesting to hear the authors' critique of the selections chosen for the Ken Burns PBS series, for example. Second, although there is an explanation of the rationale provided in the preface, it seems a bit elitist to exclude music that is commonly regarded by the public to be in the jazz genre, but just too white-bread or cross-over for these authors. A line needs to be drawn somewhere, of course: I have no personal problem with excluding formulaic pap like Kenny G., for example, but I was shocked when I couldn't find Glenn Miller. I still think I must have been looking in the wrong place. Like him or not, Miller is considered a jazz artist by everyone except, apparently, these two authors. On the other hand, its refreshing to read opinions by learned people who don't have any reservations about contradicting myths involving certain artists and the greatness of their works. It's not as if they single out anyone for criticism, but in isolated cases its clear they will declare that the emperor has no clothes. Miles Davis's "Sketches of Spain", for example, is generally considered a masterpiece. This book gives that work a pedestrian three stars, in part on the basis that, revered Davis/Evans collaboration or not, some of that album sounds like noodling. I've always loved "Sketches of Spain", and I still do, but after re-hearing it in light of the Penguin review, I have to admit it's not the most tightly focused masterpiece I've ever heard. Billie Holiday is another icon who's work is not handled as gently as some would like. She happens to be my favorite singer, but I have to acknowledge that the Penguin book correctly points out that her later work isn't for everyone. By the 1950s, Holiday's voice was outright frightening, and the authors are probably doing a service to point out that only those fans enamored with her still impeccable phrasing can truly enjoy her work in this period. In comparison to the broad scope, good writing, and impressive scholarship of this book, my complaints amount to nitpicking. These authors, however, wouldn't provide a superlative rating unless they had no reservations, so neither will I. Four stars or not, this is a great read and invaluable jazz reference guide.
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Summary: Penguin vs. AMG
Review: I use both the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD and the All Music Guide to Jazz and find them both invaluable. AMG's additional material (detailed histories, music maps of significant players, bios including birth and death dates, book & video reviews, essays) makes it the one I'd choose if I had to choose between them, but I'd hate to have to. What the Penguin Guide has that AMG doesn't: more in-depth, better-written reviews of specific CDs (although AMG has more listings, e.g., AMG = 89 listings for John Coltrane, Penguin = 66); more listings of European artists. For example, just starting with the "A's", Penguin begins with AALY Trio (a Swedish trio), then lists Eivind Aarset (a Norwegian guitarist and computerist), then Abash (another Swedish trio), and finally gets to Greg Abate, who is the first listing in AMG. This is typical throughout the book.
Rating:
Summary: Best for British jazz listeners
Review: The Penguin guide to jazz cds has a lot of interesting commentary on jazz performers and their cds. However, the cds reviewed here are primarily those editions that are readily available in Britain. This includes many cds made in Britain and other European countries that are not readily available in the USA. Also, many cds that are readily available in the USA are not listed in this book. As a reference for American jazz cd editions, a more useful book is the All Music Guide to Jazz.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reference and Enjoyable Reading
Review: If you are at all interested in Jazz this is the book to own. Record reviews are quite subjective and you may or may not agree with the authors opinions but the reviews are very informative and entertaining. My only reservation, and it is a very small one, is the European bias of the review selection. More than once I have read a review and been very interested in the album only to find out that the album is not imported to the US. Having owned a previous edition I was very pleased with the new 5th edition. The high quality and insightful reviews of Jazz records are still here, there are just more of them. A short biography of each artist has also been added. These biographies add to the readability of this already very readable guide. Most folks could probably never imagine actually picking up a book of record reviews and reading it rather than just referencing it. Well this book of reviews is a book that I find myself reading quite often. On a more mundane topic, at least to some I am sure, the quality of the paper and the binding have been improved since the last edition. A reference book should stand up to some abuse and this one is so far holding up better for me than the last edition did.
Rating:
Summary: Great but...
Review: After buying this book, i based all my Jazz Cds purchasing on the revews of this book.It is a great reference in all means. yet i wished it had more information on all the albums. i know it would be difficult to add to the already large sized book, but for jazz lovers it would mean more satisfaction. Simply it is a great reference for Jazz lovers.
Rating:
Summary: It could be better...
Review: This the best guide to jazz available. The authors are intelligent, witty and biased - just the way they should be. I have all editions except the first one, so I obviously like their book. Nevertheless, I want to focus on the worst aspects of this remarkable piece of jazz scholarship. 1) Cook & Morton use a star-system to evaluate the CDs. Unfortunately, the ratings are inflationary. A mainstream record usually gets at least three (i.e. good) stars. This makes it useless to compare recordings by different artists; in other words, the ratings can be used only when one wants to know what might be the best recordings by a particular artist. Are jazz records really always good or very good? Of course not. It is simply absurd to read e.g. pages devoted to Chet Baker in the fifth edition: 76 records and only 8 of them is rated worse than 3 stars! Perhaps the authors, after all, have not had enough time to listen this vast amount of music? 2) Cook & Morton are very fond of both avantgarde jazz (especially european) and classic jazz of the 1920s. No problem with that. But they really should include more jazz fusion. I don't mean easy-listening instrumental pop, but serious jazz, like Allan Holdsworth. It seems to me that if an artist has flirted with rock music he will not be included even if he starts to make mainstream jazz. For instance, why isn't Bill Bruford included? The Earthworks records, not to mention the album with Eddie Gomez and Ralph Towner, have not found favour with Cook & Morton - probably because "Bill is not a jazz drummer". Is this just a coincidence or spiteful discrimination, I cannot tell. 3) The latest edition (5th) has too many errors. Of course there are always minor errors in a book this size. I give two examples. Coltrane's Ballads album hasn't got "I fall in love too easily" in it. Is the Navarro-Parker collaboration (Bird and Fats - Live at Birdland) worth 3 (cf. Navarro's entry) or 4 stars (cf. Parker's entry) and what actually is the quality of Navarro's playing on this record? More serious trouble has risen when the aurhors have edited their text more than once in order to update the entries. Sometimes they have failed and the text has thus become incoherent. But never mind my complaints. This is a great book!
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