Penguin Guide to Jazz, 7th edition out soon

[J.A.W.]

The seventh edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD will be available soon from Amazon UK. I couldn't find it on Amazon.com.

[J.A.W.]

[ajf67]

I doubt I'll pick it up, but I'm glad Elvin's on the cover.

[Leeway]

I have the 3rd and 6th, don't know if I'll pick up the 7th, might wait for 8 or 9, supposing there will be an 8 or 9. I doubt 7 will have a signficant amount of new material, but we shall see.

Cook and Morton provide some of the best assessments of any guide book. In fact, I think of this less as a "buyer's guide" than as a critical reference book.

[ajf67]

Cook and Morton provide some of the best assessments of any guide book. In fact, I think of this less as a "buyer's guide" than as a critical reference book.

I agree. They are first rate. The reason I'm not going to buy this one is because I have the last version and a number of previous versions. Plus, I have less use for a book limited to reviews of only in-print CDs than I used to.

[DrJ]

As my frame of reference has widened, I would agree with what people mention here - it's more entertaining and useful as a pointer toward stuff that you may not read much about elsewhere (at least in the U.S.) than for the "reviews." However, as a beginner I found PENGUIN quite useful for its reviews - not to slavishly follow them (e.g. "buy all the 4-star and crown recordings") but to investigate material they dug. In doing that, I found I agreed with them on many accounts but disagreed on others. Helped me figure out what I liked and didn't and then allowed me to "go it alone" in the vast jazz discography with at least a few signposts to find my way.

So the thing I love about this book as opposed to All Music is its very subjectiveness - two guys with pretty consistent and clearly discernable taste, so it serves as a useful reference point. With All Music, it's a perfect example of too many cooks spoiling the broth - the internal inconsistencies are many and wildly unpredictable.

Biggest dislike - their inconsistent policy about what's included and the resulting gaping holes. IN fact I really can't discern any real rhyme or reason to what goes into each edition. They claim they don't list limited editions like Mosaic, but then they'll include something like a West Coast Classic (e.g. Curtis Amy's KATANGA is in there), as well as a whole slew of ultra-hard to find European labels that I'm sure are WAY more obscure and limited in run than the stuff they omit.

Edited September 7, 2004 by DrJ

[Leeway]

There was a period of time when I first got seriously into jazz that I used Penguin and other guides to help me sort things out. Then I stopped looking at them and went my own way. Now I read Penguin simply for the pleasure of the writing (that erudite yet breezy style that marks much of British arts and letters writing) and the keenness of the critical arguments. They are serious about the subject yet not ponderous. In another age, one might label this an exercise in "connoisseurship" but now that term has a--unfortunately-- pejorative connotation.

I also have the MusicHound Guide to Jazz, which has evaluations by a host of critics and reviewers. Generally, these people are passionate about their subjects and generally quite knowledgeable, but there is an inherent unevenness and inconsistency in such an approach. Still, it's a useful counterweight to Cook and Morton, who are, after all, not infallible (thank goodness).

The point of any of these guides should be, in the end, to stimulate the reader/listener to develop their own critical thinking.

Edited September 7, 2004 by Leeway

[Jazzdude]

I have the 5th edition. A new one already!! It seems like the 6th edition just came out. Props for the publishers! I just wish "all music guide to jazz" could get it's s__ togethter and regularly publish their guide like they are suppose to--one every other year.

[sidewinder]

I always find that the Penguin guide is a good title to put in the washroom for a little light reading ( B-) ) however some of the assessments are a bit dubious (e.g. 2 and a half stars for Buddy Collette 'Man of Many Parts').

[robviti]

here's amazon.com's listing for the new penguin guide. the release date is 9/28 and the price is $17.68 (free shipping over $25).

this seems like a good time to share something i've been sitting on for a few months. it's a note from brian morton that some of you might find amusing:

THE SCOTSMAN

Tue 20 Apr 2004

1,700 reasons why I have a nasty case of Adjective Fatigue

BRIAN MORTON

You’ll forgive the implicit plug, but Richard Cook and I have just finished work on what will be the 7th edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz, a reference book of rainforest-threatening proportions apparently much browsed by hep cats, swingers and the occasional pointy-headed avant-gardist. And God bless every one of them.

We started this Sisyphean undertaking more than ten years ago because we were young and needed the money. Now we’re older and need it even more. Over the span, we’ve said farewell to vinyl and musicassettes, seen off palace coups by minidisk and DAT, and seen the reissue catalogue erupt in a pall of boxed sets, best ofs, very best ofs and least worst ofs. If it continues like this, before the next edition looms we’ll both be found frozen in attitudes of surprise under a thick ash of burnt jewel cases and singed liner notes, like citizens of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Either that or divorced and homeless.

There’s a certain forgivable euphoria in finishing a book of more than 1,700 double column pages. Like London Marathon finishers, there’s a need to talk. But the process also raises some interesting questions. After a while, endless reviewing comes to seem less like writing than typing, as someone once said of Jack Kerouac. And it makes you aware just how debased the language of critical praise really is. Leaving aside the invidious business of assigning stars and rosettes to artists’ work, there is the danger of wearing out terms such as "extraordinary", "remarkable", "innovative", and "seminal" (though I rarely have the spunk to use the last one), and a very serious danger that you’ll catch yourself thinking that a musician’s work "looks back and forward at the same time, both radical and conservative". In other words, I haven’t a scooby-doo. Then there’s the business of comparison, which is the root of all criticism and also the root of all critical evils. A young singer "merits comparison" with Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday. Aye, they were great; she sounds like a nail on a slate. I know how this feels. In my young day, I was likened to Parker and Gillespie. Unfortunately, it was Jim Parker and Hughie Gillespie.

Finally, spare a thought and a few coppers for we sufferers from AF, an affliction every bit as debilitating as ME and IBS, but seldom spoken of outside discreet chatrooms and media snugs. For the last few months, Cook and I have battled Adjective Fatigue. How many new ways are there to describe the sound of a tenor saxophone? I long ago swore a deep vow never to use the term "warm", as jazz critics had for generations; one veteran British writer actually thought the instrument was called the "warm tenor saxophone". I also pledged never to describe a trumpet as "bell-like" until I heard one that really did remind me of Big Ben or the start of the last lap in the steeplechase. Now that we’re on the last lap - just proofs and the index to go - we both lapse into a conversational state reminiscent of a very early Ernest Hemingway story: just the names and numbers of things, no adjective or adverbs, no on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand qualifications. It also leaves me peering more literally than sceptically at other reviewers’ work: a play is "lacerating" - really? did you need stitches and a tetanus jab?; a Chopin recital "floods" the Wigmore Hall with sound, and after they’d spent all that money renewing the carpets; Prince’s Musicology isn’t as good as his "seminal" early work - eeeuw! So when you turn to the arts columns today, spare a further thought for the poor bugger who had to get past the "thing words" and the "doing words" and have a stab at telling you what something was like. I’m hoping to start back with colours and shapes by mid-summer and we’ll take it from there.

• Donations to AFI (the Adjective Fatigue Institute - pron. "awfy") should be sent via The Scotsman.

Edited September 7, 2004 by jazzshrink

[A Lark Ascending]

Brian Morton was my favourite jazz presenter in the UK. He got edged out of Radio 3 a few years back and then fell out with Radio Scotland disappearing completely!

He has a book coming out - 'Plenty, Plenty Rhythm' - initially promised for Autumn 2004. But I notice its now slated for August 2006. He's clearly taking a couple of years off to hunt for underused adjectives.

When I first bought the Penguin (2nd Edition) I used it a great deal to find my way, especially into European jazz waters.

With recent editions I tend to use it more just for the fun of reading what they have to say. Though every now and then I'll come across someone totally new and (I assume) unknown, check Penguin and find ten entries!

[sidewinder]

The Saturday evening features that Morton occasionally does for Radio 3 are usually very good. I recall an excellent half hour on Booker Little in the series 'Significant Others' and also an excellent review he did of Andrew Hill's 'Grass Roots' Conn when it came out. Up there with the late Charles Fox in my opinion in terms of jazz learnedness.

[Larry Kart]

I would hope that the authors of the "Penguin Guide" eventually would alter such gaffes as this (from the sixth edition, and I assume all previous ones): "The most important baritone saxophonist in contemporary jazz, [Gerry] Mulligan took the turbulent Serge Chaloff as his model...." Not only is there no evidence to support this lazy assertion (two celebrated modern baritone saxophonists, one must have influenced the other?), there is plenty of evidence that it is plain wrong -- including Mulligan's openly expressed distaste for Chaloff's playing and the fact there is no resemblance between Chaloff's typically agitated Parker-based phrasing and Mulligan's essentially Swing Era-based approach.

[JSngry]

When it comes to penguins and jazz, make mine...

[1ngram]

Surely there must be room for a "Penguin Guide to Jazz CDs Out of Print" book by now. How else is Tina Brooks (not mentioned in any edition I've seen) ever going to get a mention.

[A Lark Ascending]

I would hope that the authors of the "Penguin Guide" eventually would alter such gaffes as this (from the sixth edition, and I assume all previous ones): "The most important baritone saxophonist in contemporary jazz, [Gerry] Mulligan took the turbulent Serge Chaloff as his model...." Not only is there no evidence to support this lazy assertion (two celebrated modern baritone saxophonists, one must have influenced the other?), there is plenty of evidence that it is plain wrong -- including Mulligan's openly expressed distaste for Chaloff's playing and the fact there is no resemblance between Chaloff's typically agitated Parker-based phrasing and Mulligan's essentially Swing Era-based approach.

Yes, this annoyed me too.

Everyone knows John Surman is the most important baritone saxophonist in contemporary jazz.

[Clunky]

Sir I think you mean Ronnie Ross......

Yours sincerely............

[Larry Kart]

Bev, I didn't like that part of what they said either, though my favorite modern baritonist is Lars Gullin. (I think Gerry is more important as a composer-bandleader than as a soloist.) Again, though, the idea that Chaloff was Mulligan's model is absurd.

[Victor Christensen]

I have used the Penguin Guide some years back (I have three editions), but have found it not to bo so complete, because there are many CD's. that is still available that is not mentioned, even some artists. I also do not always agree with Morton and Cooks assesments, but that is a thing about personal taste. But I am really amazed, if they have listen in depth to all the CD's mentioned in the guide, when do they sleep, eat or do anything else.

Vic

[gdogus]

Like many of you, I've really enjoyed the PG, but I haven't bothered buying a new edition since the 4th (!) Obviously, it's time to upgrade - partly for the advice, mostly for the sharp critical writing.

Edited September 9, 2004 by gdogus

[Quincy]

I have 5 and I'm pretty sure I'll get 7 as I'm still young enough (in jazz years) to benefit from it. And I do like the writing and it's pretty inexpensive by the pound.

Plus it's pretty good exercise holding it open as you read.

[ajf67]

While I may not buy the newest edition, I am glad I keep the old ones. Tonight I was looking to see if they reviewed Sun Ra's "The Solar-Myth Approach" and couldn't find it in the 6th or 5th, but was able to find it in their first edition.

[Jazzmoose]

...and "seminal" (though I rarely have the spunk to use the last one...

I've never bought any edition of the book, but anyone who can write that deserves some of my coin...I think I'll pick up the new one!