The Penguin Guide to Jazz (5th Ed.); Richard Cook and Brian Morton; Penguin Books; ISBN 0-14-051452-X
People new to jazz often resort to an authoritative source they can consult for direction in building their collections. One of the most popular is the Penguin Guide to Jazz by Richard Cook and Brian Morton. The Guide is an excellent reference, although it does have its leanings and biases.
The marvellous thing about the Guide is its wealth of historical and biographical information. Jazz is a culture, and Cook and Morton do a splendid job of chronicling who played with whom and when. Armed with this information, you can to trace through the various influences and partnerships of nearly every jazz musician of note. Although it tries to be global, the Guide focusses mainly on American musicians - no quibble here: Jazz is American music. The British are well-documented as well, (not surprising since both authors are Brits), although musicians from farther afield are less so.
For those looking to start or expand their collections, the Guide provides a rating system using from 1 to 4 stars; a crown is added for those considered to be la crème de la crème. No indication is given of how the ratings are derived, although the introduction does give a caveat advising readers to consult not only the rating, but also the text describing the recording. This is good advice since the rating system does not provide any information about things like style or recording quality. Consider Benny Carter's "3,4,5: The Verve Small Group Sessions" on Verve, whhich gets 4 stars, even though the recording quality is not great. Throughout you can hear Carter's wonderful sax playing, clear as a bell front and center. However, the sidemen sound as though they are playing in another room. When you consider that these sidemen include a young Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown, you can't help but feel that the 4th star is undeserved. Nothing is said about this in the text. In terms of style, consider Eric Dolphy's "Out to Lunch" (Blue Note). The recording gets 4 stars and a crown, but pushes the envelope stylistically so that listeners who "don't get no kick from modern jazz" might find it less enjoyable. Again, little indication in the text. Another good example is Miles Davis' "At the Filmore". Way out there stylistically, but gets 3 and a half stars.
Given the huge number of recordings covered in the 1500+ pages of the Guide, it is unfair to find fault by nit-picking every rating. However, those who are looking to build a collection need to understand they are well advised to cross-check with other sources of information. Ratings provided by contributors to online vendors like Amazon are quite helpful. Consider the example of "Alone Together" with Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau and Charlie Haden (Blue Note). This recording gets 4 stars in the guide, and given its all-star cast, you would think it a shoo-in for any collection. However, it is completely panned by reviewers on Amazon.com, and perhaps with good reason - during listening it comes off like a group badly in need of either a leader, a direction, or both - sort of like an all-star team put together for the Olympics and playing its first game together (IMHO).
Of course there is nothing like personal listening to help find music you like, and that's what jazz radio is for.
