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The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings

By Richard Cook & Brian Morton

Penguin (1646pp., £35)

Now in its ninth edition (the first one came out in 1992 and cost £15.99), the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings is now generally acknowledged as the source for expert but witty and accessible advice for those wishing to sort out the wheat from the chaff in what is probably the most bewildering genre of contemporary music.

As Ken Burns, Clint Eastwood å or, for that matter, anyone whoÁs ever commented on the music in print or blog å knows, jazz occupies territory littered with mines, any one of which (and they come in an extraordinary assortment of categories, including nationalistic, racial, aesthetic and definitional) can detonate unexpectedly at any moment, generally creating more heat than light, but always resulting in unpleasant injuries for all concerned.

Cook/MortonÁs finest achievement, therefore, lies in their having cut a path through this minefield courtesy of their firm, unwavering adherence to one single, overriding value: musical excellence.

Of course, the identification of said value relies on all sorts of subjective and deeply personal reactions, but both authors have such a wealth of listening experience upon which to draw that these reactions are always persuasive, based as they are on deep knowledge of and a broad perspective on the music, from Jelly Roll Morton to Anthony Braxton.

After nine editions, too, the book is now extremely user-friendly, combining quick browsability (the 200-odd ÇCore CollectionÁ entries, the star-rating system with crowns for personal author favourites) with encyclopaedic, in-depth coverage, so that, for example, the entries on Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker or Duke Ellington are as subtle, nuanced and informative as anything to be found in full-length biographies of their respective subjects.

This said (and it should be stressed that what follows is a relatively minor quibble, arguably prompted by not entirely disinterested special pleading), there are occasional puzzling omissions from this edition: Christine Tobin (2008 BBC Jazz Award-winner) has disappeared, as have Partisans (though Phil Robson remains, while Julian Siegel is still absent) and Billy Jenkins; UK-based ÇnewcomersÁ such as Kate Williams, Andrew McCormack, Christian Brewer, Tom Cawley/Curios, Finn Peters, Alcyona Mick, Barry Green and Ben Davis are all absent, while (from the first few pages alone) Scandinavians such as Frúy Aagre, Staffan Abeleen and Lennart —berg are all accorded entries.

Nevertheless å and as Morton says in his Introduction, ÇitÁs impossible to include every jazz record from every part of the globeÁ å the Penguin Guide remains genuinely indispensable, supremely literate, compulsively readable and unpretentiously authoritative, and constitutes a lasting, fitting memorial to the late Richard Cook.