Rating: 
Summary: not perfect , but the best there is
Review: The ideal reviewer should share your taste!There has been a tidal wave of books rating jazz and jazz recordings in recent years. Most of them are idiocyncratic or have dreadfully misguided taste. The is the lone gem! Penguin is the only reliable guide of them all. Yes, I have minor quibbles, there is a universe of difference between the stellar performances rated four stars and the mediocre ones rated three. I'd like to see a five star system. I'd like to see more 1 star and 2 star ratings for lesser music. Yes, ultimately reviewers, including myself, end up rating a musician's music against his other music, not other people, so a four star rating of music by, say, Miles Davis or Stan Getz is NOT the equivalent of a four star rating by, say, Cannonball Adderly or Nat Cole (no letters, please!).Yes, they gush too much over some mediocre late Miles Davis. But they are the most accurate and I find myself agreeing more than disagreeing. And they are far and away better predictors of how I would like music I haven't heard, and what to buy first, than any other guide. So, for me, if I can't review it myself, at this point in time, Penguin is the best available! Also, Penguin is not as "Americo-centric" as other guides. It's worth the cost of admission for lesser known European artists like Bobo Stenson.
Rating: 
Summary: Not what it once was, but still the best
Review: First of all, if you do not own such a jazz guide and want one, this is the only one to consider. The Rough Guide, AMG, etc. are merely mediocre compared to this massive and impressive tome. In fact, even if you're not interested in a guide per se, this book is invaluable if you are a jazz fan and would like some extensive and comprehensive collection of jazz musicians and their biographical and artistic development - that's what the Penguin truly is. Cook and Morton are learned and perceptive critics, better and more comprehensive in every respect than those in other guides. While others, including many of the public reviewers here, would dispute matters of taste, those are essentially non-critical and irrelevant issues. We all have our favorites, as do Cook and Morton, but the valuable service they provide is true criticism, especially in firmly placing each musicians discography within the context of his/her peers and also his/her own artistic style and goals. They also have a better perspective on European jazz than most Americans do, and while they may have some surprising enthusiams for certain players, they are always sincere and never pretentious. And they write much better than the others in this field. The Guide is more than just a collection of reviews, it's a discussion of myriad jazz artists and their musical histories as conveyed through recordings. That being said, this new edition brings out some inevitable drop-offs from the previous one, and there's not much that can be done about it. It's a question of space. There are more CDs covered, more pages added, and the book itself is massive. What this has meant is a reorganization of the previous content - many sections have been pared down, paraphrasing more extensive reviews. To me, this is a sad loss, because one of the pleasures of this book is to pull it off the shelf, flip to a random section and really learn about a musician, not just a bunch of records. The extensive and wonderful sections on Coltrane, Parker, Davis and others are still here, and each musician now has a brief biographical paragraph preceeding the actual reviews, but a lot of information has been cut for most of the non-godlike figures, and that is a sad loss, no matter how understandable it is.
Rating:
Summary: A Big Improvement
Review: The 5th edition is a big improvement! I didn't buy the 4th because very little was changed from the 3rd. But with the passage of time, more interesting stuff is included here. Recordings on small lables such as Okka Disk, Eremite and Atavistic are given good space thus including most of today's best creative musicians. There's quite a few of Jemeel Mondoc's recordings listed (who's that? - read and find out!) Also, Wynton and the regressive crew get a fair shake in the Penguin Guide. Plus, they use good "trade" paper instead of mass market newsprint this time. My biggest beef with the guide is the authors' occassional flip dismissal of certain albums or artist. Another is there desire for an artist to do something else. For example they pan Coltrane's two final sessions "Expressions" and "Stellar Regions" because they wish the final records were a better summation Trane's work. Well, I think Expression is a messy collection but think Stellar Regions is a consise masterpiece. All in all a good book. Another reviewer dismisses the AMG guide but I like to have both. The AMG guide (and website)is more comprehensive-including out of print stuff but the reviews of individual sessions are more thorough in the Penguin.
Rating:
Summary: Cook and Morton -- THE Guide to Recorded Jazz
Review: It's a tough job, sitting around listening to all the new jazz for Penguin, but someone's got to do it, and Cook & Morton have done it for the 5th time! The giant new edition has dropped, and it's a beauty, with a cool blue cover and over 1600 two-column pages of reviews. Some talk as if this book had any competition -- get real! That would be AMG, and it's online. This is THE ONE! A category of gripers seems to be the mainstream bop crowd, who want to stop the clock before 1959, but Cook & Morton simply do not leave out any serious jazz, which of course includes bop. Yes, they include the avant-garde, but if you don't like it, then don't read those reviews! Their approach is catholic -- inclusive. One type of "jazz fan" definitely won't like this guide, and that is people who think Kenny G plays jazz. Cook & Morton mince no words in their introduction: "We have decided again to dismiss many records which amount to little more than easy-listening, instrumental or vocal music with only the vaguest of jazz connotations. The radio format in America known as "smooth jazz" includes a great deal of this kind of thing." So it comes down to recommendations for 2 groups, those new to Cook & Morton, and those who already have an earlier edition: 1) If you haven't yet encountered Cook & Morton, and you either are or are becoming a serious jazz fan, then you must have this book -- it's that simple. You will be amazed at what you don't know, and will soon learn! 2) If you already have an earlier edition, it's chancier whether you "need" the new 5th or not. My first edition of C&M was the Third (purple, 1996). The Fourth (orange, 1999) just wasn't the same -- as many others have noted, some sort of update would be just the ticket when you've already been through most of the older releases. If you keep up with new releases by reading such publications as Down Beat (mainstream), Cadence, Coda, Signal to Noise or The Wire (all of which emphasize the avant-garde), then you are likely to find that the additions to the latest C&M are very patchy compared to what you already know. One last word for fellow enthusiasts of the avant-garde, who may just discovering it via/despite Ken Burns -- Cook & Morton is a bible of sorts, but here are three more indispensable introductions: A) "Free Jazz" by Jost, B) "The Freedom Principle" by Litweiler, and C) "As Serious As Your Life" by Wilmer. All three have recently been reprinted -- go for it!
Rating:
Summary: A Mighty Big Penguin
Review: The Penguin Guide is good. Unlike other jazz CD guides, one gets the impression that the authors actually listened to the CDs that they reviewed. This edition now has brief bios at the beginning of each artist's entry and more detailed information about the artists are found within the context of the reviews. The reviews themselves are interesting, even if I don't agree with all of them (Sketches Of Spain "overrated"!?!). Also, the book tends to list only the European versions of CDs in print, which makes it a bit harder to track down American versions. Furthermore, the emphasis is on American and European artists, thus neglecting most of the rest of the world. I guess if they wanted to include everyone, the book would be twice as thick and it is already pretty massive. Still, an ambitious and praiseworthy book. A bargain at the Amazon price listed here.
Rating: 
Summary: The best by default
Review: And if that suggests an underlying lack of enthusiasm then I must admit to being deterred by the editorial sloppiness the new guide displays. It's not so much the pageant of typos, inevitable in such a hefty tome (although on this evidence, you wouldn't trust Penguin with setting a dictionary). Nor the factual errors, which, again, are only natural in a book that heroically surveys the shifting sands of recorded jazz. It's more the feeling that dozy editors let Cook and Morton's assertions through unchallenged where a more rigorous, sceptical approach might have resulted in fewer inconsistencies. On page 335, for instance, Joshua Redman is 'as ever... is flash without much profundity'. That magisterial dismissiveness ('as ever') appears to be the last word on him, particularly since elsewhere he 'comes in on 'A Touch Of Silver' and continues to prompt questions about how great he really is' (1176). But if Redman is 'already overhyped' (807), his actual entry doesn't exactly underhype him. 'When a man makes a start as powerful as Redman's, one can't help but be anticipatory,' the authors gush and you can hear them virtually salivating at the chops. 'He has such a fine sound, fertile imagination and ambitious delivery that he is a kind of celebration of the core jazz language in himself'. Nice thing about Redman, you can say what you like about him even if it is contradictory. But so it goes. Bill Evans's session with Monica Zetterlund is 'a favourite of ours although a certain sympathy is required for this idiosyncratic singer'. Presumably that 'certain sympathy' was lacking when assessing her contribution to NHOP's 'This Is All I Ask' where Cook and Morton announce 'we *remain* Zetterlund sceptics' (my emphasis). Happily, their good humour is sufficiently restored by the time we read her own entry where she's described as 'the coolest of cool stylists' which, if true, makes her better than June Christy and Chris Connor. Except that can't be right because the latter is 'the cool vocalist par excellence.' Which is it to be? The same lack of consistency mars the rosette award Cook and Morton give to their favourite titles. Rosettes bestowed in earlier editions are revoked here often without comment ('Head Hunters' and 'The Fabulous Fats Navarro'). Nothing wrong with their indulgence although the concept is slightly undermined by negligence. Again, decent proof-reading surely would have caught the muddle that is the citation for Howard Riley's 'The Day Will Come'. The book's strengths remain its humour and the authors' eagerness to champion the unfashionable. I'm even willing to admire their tendency to revise their opinions on artists between editions of the Guide; I just don't approve when they do it several times in the same one. Despite these quibbles, if you can only afford one guide to jazz, this would be the one to buy. At least, that is, until Gramophone revises its own guide: by taking on less, they somehow achieve more.
Rating:
Summary: Just got the 5th edition
Review: I have had them them all. The format has been improved, and new artist biographies have been added for all artists. However, some issues from the previous addition have not been addressed. * While coverage of the northern hemisphere (incl Asia) is good, coverage of the southern hemisphere is lagging behind. Only US and European artists have been rewarded crowns. But perhaps that says something about the current state of Jazz down south. * European catalogue numbers have been provided, but not the US equivalents. This could be confusing when you order from Amazon.com. * LPs were covered in the 1st edition, but are no longer covered. Deleted albums are not covered (titles should at least be mentioned imho). * Searching and indexing has not been improved. * This edition seems to have more mistakes and typos than the previous - maybe not surprising for a book of this size. But for these reasons I am only giving it 4 stars this time. Should you buy the new edition? The authors must have the greatest job in the world. The Penguin Guide is still the definitive jazz reference. It is as readable as ever, and reasonably up to date. But it will cost you more than the cover price if you are a music collector.
Rating:
Summary: The desert island book about jazz recordings
Review: I think this is the best jazz recordings review book ever. On the other hand it's the only good one, it's the only one where real info is given about each album included, not just a three-word-characterization. The ratings are well argued, analytical, and not naively enthusiastic about anything just half-decent. It's THE book for a devout CD lover, almost all available albums by not only Art Blakey, Miles Davis but also Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor and Raphe Malik are included. I just wish that it would go still a little bit further: it's thick as a brick one-volume as it is, but I think they should make it a two-volume, even more comprehensive. They've managed to keep the number of pages down to a manageable 1500 or so, but only with the cumbersome excuse or leaving out the "unavailable" albums. Maybe my view is an European, spoiled, one but when albums are "deleted" and "dropped" by the record companies they still remain in the shops for years. So when a "deleted"/"out of print" Blue Note album is re-released again I still see copies of the previous version in shops here in Helsinki at least - so why leave any old and "dropped" and reviewed releases out of book when they can be found years after anyway? At present, using the Penguin guide is occasionally a bit complicated when you look after info about a specific release, find that it isn't included in the latest edition, and then go into browsing the older editions of the same book to check if it was included in one of those. Back to the point: the book is great, I happen to own about 4000 CDs, half of them jazz, and it's still giving me new insights.
Rating:
Summary: One of the great reference works in any field!
Review: Whether or not you agree with the authors' opinions this book has always been a magnificent labour of love - thorough yet lively and funny. Their tastes are often eccentric - who else would dare give a top rating to The Ganelin Trio, yet not award one to Billie Holiday or, say, Dexter Gordon? Having said that and noting that they deplore the suggestion, their top rated albums are an indispensable guide to the music, biased towards European Free music perhaps but all the more idiosyncratically entertaining as a result. In contrast to comments elsewhere on this page, I have discovered some gloriously entertaining records through this book, records by Tony Oxley, Charles Gayle, Peter Kowald and many others who show that there is more to the music than Kenny Ball (who just to show their eclecticism they rather like). But as I say, even if you abhor their preferences the writing is superb and purely as a reference book it is unbeatable. It abounds with jokes and spirited rants and is a million miles from the po-faced dry prose one often gets from writers in this field. The new edition has short biogs of all the artists and pushes the book to a new level. It is now nothing less than one of the great reference works, it should share a place on your book shelf with Roget's Thesaurus and Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. It is now the only Jazz book you must have. My only worry is that given that it is now almost as thick as it is long will the next edition be unfeasibly huge?
Rating:
Summary: The best single volume in the music
Review: Despite the bland title of this book it is much more than a quick star-rating guide to recorded jazz; the accompanying texts are often quite detailed essays that give biographical & historical context for the recordings, besides often detailed commentary on the recordings themselves. Personnel listings are another important & useful feature. The British authors manage to combine catholic tastes with sharp & often opinionated commentary. They've thought hard about the music: it's often illuminating to compare the versions of entries between editions (for instance, their increased skepticism about the self-consciousness of the music of Geri Allen and Don Byron between this edition and the last two; or their rethinks about Coltrane's _Ascension_ or the later recordings of Evan Parker). The European perspective makes this an unusually unprejudiced guide, one reason why it can be recommended more than most published histories of jazz or guidebooks to a neophyte: free-jazz and fusion musicians are dealt with seriously & respectfully, as are Wynton Marsalis & other neotraditionalists. Though I note that a few reviewers on this page dislike the book's non-American perspective, I should think it a salutary reminder that jazz has many traditions & innovators, & that its influence now stretches over the world. There are some small flaws. The most irritating is the occasional ambiguity created by the "As above." entry for personnel listings (& occasionally one of these entries is incorrect as the preceding entry has changed from the previous edition). There's the odd inconsistency in the ratings too (as when a four-star disc is mostly criticized in the text below, or a low-starred disc is praised highly in the text), but nothing major. It's a small pity that compilations are excluded, which means that fine discs like _The Birth of the Third Stream_ (e.g.) don't get a look-in. Above all, this book is a demonstration of how jazz is not simply a canon of a select few geniuses, but is & has always been a lively meeting-place of many different players & traditions & talents, who all, in a big or smaller way, contribute something to the pot. A reader will come away from this book with a greater understanding of figures like Coltrane, Ellington, Parker, Coleman, &c., precisely because he or she will have a fuller sense of the whole scene--having met figures like Hill, Bley, Haig, Nichols, Konitz, Mitchell, Marsh, Giuffre, Mosca, Larry Young, Rivers, Hemphill, Lake, etc.
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