title: The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings: Eighth Edition
author: R. M. Cook
description: The updated, eighth edition of this long-running title features more than 14,000 reviews of CDs and 400 new artist entries. Entries include very brief descriptions of the artists and a list of their recordings, with reviews and ratings by the authors. The lengths of the CD entries vary from very short (label, catalog number, issue date, and performers) to extensive, multiparagraph descriptions of the album's history, reception, and individual songs. The authors are clearly devout jazz historians, and the character of the entries is as much admiring as it is strictly factual. Their detailed descriptions of albums, songs, and even artists' tone colors and interpretations within specific songs are testament to their expertise. They also lament the loss of jazz divisions at many major record companies, leaving independent labels to carry the lion's share of the responsibility for documenting this art form. <P>Changes from the previous edition are worth mentioning. The artist index, missing from the seventh edition, has returned in response to reader demand, but to maintain what the authors consider a reasonable physical size for the volume, they have eliminated entries "which have seemed to stand still in recent years through the lack of any new releases by the artist in question." In some particularly long entries containing extensive lists of albums, they offer an "in brief" section, which allows for the inclusion of less-important yet still worthwhile recordings by presenting shorter descriptions. <P>Another important feature is the "Core Collection" selections. Within the listings for some artists, recordings considered essential for a basic jazz library are printed in bold type and described in greater detail. A separate list of these 200 titles would have been useful for those who are looking to build their own collections without having to wade through the entire book to find these seminal works. <P>Libraries holding the seventh edition, without the author index, will probably want this one. Anything older will certainly need to be updated. <i>Steven York</i><br><i>Copyright &#169; American Library Association. All rights reserved</i>
zlib_text: PENGUIN BOOKS
  
  The Penguin Jazz Guide
  
  Richard Cook was born in Kew and spent virtually all of his life in or around
  that part of London. An early passion for record collecting helped push him
  towards jazz and both interests endured. He got paid for a piece of music
  writing in 1979 and was so impressed that he kept going. He edited the _Wire_
  for seven years and was founding editor of _Jazz Review_ ; he also wrote for
  the _Sunday Times_ , the _New Statesman_ and _Punch_ at different times and,
  in addition to the first eight editions of this book, was the author of a
  ‘biography’ of the Blue Note label, a study of Miles Davis and _Richard Cook’s
  Jazz Encyclopedia_ , published by Penguin. He also presented a well-liked and
  thoroughly idiosyncratic jazz programme on London local radio, and made some
  documentaries for BBC Radio 3; didn’t like cameras much, though. Horse racing
  and malt whisky were his other passions and the only subjects on which he and
  his co-author ever disagreed. Sadly, 