All Music Guide To Jazz vs. Penguin Guide To Jazz

[mikelz777]

So which do you prefer, the All Music Guide To Jazz or the Penguin Guide To Jazz? I've compared both and I'd have to say that I prefer the All Music Guide. While there are reviews in both that I would disagree with, (which is going to be pretty much a given with this type of thing) I found that I disagreed more frequently and, in general, to a greater degree with the Penguin Guide. I really like the essays and music maps featured in the AMG. The AMG also seems to have a more comprehensive coverage of more artists releases. I've read positive and negative opinions about both here so I'm curious to see if there is any kind of general consensus on which is preferred.

Edited February 28, 2011 by mikelz777

[B. Clugston]

I really enjoyed the first 4 or 5 editions of the Penguin Guide, but stopped buying them as later editions became so poorly edited and the reviews were less informative.

[Dan Gould]

I think Penguin is fine if you want to read a guide that is as likely to be aggravating or infuriating as it is to be especially enlightening. But if you want a guide that is likely to give you consistently good advice on whether you should purchase a particular CD, it doesn't come close to AMG. For all the abuse heaped on Yanow's narrow shoulders, he is prety consistently accurate when he recommends a particular recording to fans of a particular style, particularly the "modern mainstream".

[king ubu]

I use both but I much prefer the Penguin guide.

There are lots of good reviews on AMG but the site as a whole is such a mess (for instance the separation into compilations and album rarely ever is done in a sensible way).

Also, with the Penguin guides, over the years they became like friends... I know what they like and what not, I have some idea about where my taste is similar to theirs and where not, where to take their opinion with a grain of salt etc... that's not possible with the huge inconsistency that you get on AMG.

[Chuck Nessa]

I think Penguin is fine if you want to read a guide that is as likely to be aggravating or infuriating as it is to be especially enlightening. But if you want a guide that is likely to give you consistently good advice on whether you should purchase a particular CD, it doesn't come close to AMG. For all the abuse heaped on Yanow's narrow shoulders, he is prety consistently accurate when he recommends a particular recording to fans of a particular style, particularly the "modern mainstream".

Thanks for this post Dan. We all ran Scott off this board and we all lose. I certainly don't think he's correct all the time but as I said a while back (and offended him), he's a good generalist.

[Eric]

I vote for this guy:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=search&search_in=forums

[king ubu]

I vote for this guy:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=search&search_in=forums

for the org forum's search function?

[Eric]

I vote for this guy:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=search&search_in=forums

for the org forum's search function?

well yeah, if I am really curious about something, I look here

[king ubu]

I vote for this guy:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=search&search_in=forums

for the org forum's search function?

well yeah, if I am really curious about something, I look here

I see

But often works better on google like this: ["search term" site:organissimo.org]

[Christiern]

All Music Guide has Scott Yanow. That is never good.

[.:.impossible]

I haven't referred to either in a very long time.

They were both essential for me when I first started developing my interest in jazz though.

[Rooster_Ties]

For all the abuse heaped on Yanow's narrow shoulders, he is pretty consistently accurate when he recommends a particular recording to fans of a particular style, particularly the "modern mainstream".

Thanks for this post Dan. We all ran Scott off this board and we all lose. I certainly don't think he's correct all the time but as I said a while back (and offended him), he's a good generalist.

All Music Guide has Scott Yanow. That is never good.

Never good? For anyone?

I'll take a reviewer with their share of factual errors, but good general insights most of the time -- over one that's a lot more accurate, but with more esoteric notions/opinions about music.

For a site like Allmusic, which caters to a very broad and wide constituency, I believe they (and even we) are better off with the former.

Saying Scott Yanow is "never good" is like saying Wikipedia (in total) is so bad (and there are plenty who say that) because it has some stuff wrong, while getting so much so right. Now I admit I'm comparing apples and oranges, because Wikipedia doesn't traffic in Opinion like Allmusic -- but I go to Allmusic as much or more for opinion as facts. The facts most people go there for are at least as accurate as the collective output of the world of semi-serious jazz criticism (taken as a whole). Should it be better? Yeah, sure, but shouldn't everything?

I'm with Chuck and Dan on this one. When the good outweighs the bad, it's counterproductive to hammer incessantly at the bad, at the expense of the good.

Edit: See .:.impossible's post immediately above this one for one supporting argument. I don't reference Allmusic as much as I did 5 and 10 years ago (at least jazz), but they're still my go-to site for a first take on anything music related.

What, pray tell Chris, would you suggest as a better option? Please point me to a better alternative.

Edited March 1, 2011 by Rooster_Ties

[mikelz777]

I must have missed a memo. I thought all of the knee-jerk, blind hatred/criticisms were reserved for Wynton.

[Dan Gould]

If you need a copy, I can get you that memo.

[Quincy]

Behold! The future of All Music.

Paste (which was bought by Wolfgang's Vault recently) reports All Music is merging all of their guides into one site. So this may mean a couple clicks to get where you're used to going unless some kind of deep-linking is available.

As far as the guides I didn't vote. Penguin is an entertaining read in places and I doubt I've ever been steered wrong by anything 3.5+ stars with artists that I'm at least somewhat familiar with. There have been cases where something they're not overly fond of, such as Lee Morgan's Tomcat or anything by Grachan Moncur III that I end up liking much more, but that happens with any guide. But on the whole it can be useful despite its limitations (such as no Mosaics.)

The All Music is something I probably check out every day, sometimes multiple times for various reasons, even though I know their credit information is far from guaranteed to be accurate. Despite the messiness of comps getting mixed in with regular issues and so forth it is a free site and there's so much music in the world I'm shocked it's as organized as it is. And it's free!

Neither carries the weight that a guide book did when I was a teen or pre-internet but they contribute to the selection process along with searching this site and the internet for blogs & reviews and a host of other sites depending on the genre. Plus now it's much easier to hear the music (and legally at that), so often the ears get to make up "their mind," though I remind them that often great music isn't appreciated on the first go around, especially when multi-tasking at 9:45 AM.

[colinmce]

I like the Penguin because it presents a personal vision of the music. There is no such thing as objectivity in the criticism of art, and I dislike anything that approaches it from that vantage point.

[John L]

Please point me to a better alternative.

You ears?

[medjuck]

I find AMG very slow and hard to navigate. Someone gave me an edition of the Penguin Guide but for some reason I never refer to it, I guess because I prefer the internet. I often find the users reviews on Amazon and iTunes helpful. But this forum is my first choice for advice.

[AllenLowe]

try Max Harrison's old guides - not complete but they are to Yanow what Sonny Rollins is to Kenny G.

Yanow is dishonest - no one can review that much with any accuracy and/or consistency, and it shows.

[king ubu]

I like the Penguin because it presents a personal vision of the music. There is no such thing as objectivity in the criticism of art, and I dislike anything that approaches it from that vantage point.

Excellent point

[Dan Gould]

Who claims "objectivity"? Its all opinion, but Penguin is very idiosyncratic to its authors while AMG takes the approach almost of a Consumer Reports type publication - if you like this, you'll probably like that. Its a buying guide, not a way to start arguments.

Penguin is good for raising my blood pressure, not spending my disposable income.

[A Lark Ascending]

I like the Penguin because it presents a personal vision of the music. There is no such thing as objectivity in the criticism of art, and I dislike anything that approaches it from that vantage point.

Excellent point

My view too.

I find AMG useful but colourless. Has the most bizarre use of the word 'quite'.

Edited March 4, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[Dave James]

I voted for the Penguin Guide although I have multiple copies of both in my library. The one thing I always found off-putting about AMG was the fact that their ratings are based on the individual albums of a given artist as compared to their overall catalog instead of a more broad based set of criteria. That's why you see three and four star ratings for albums from hacks like Kenny G.

I'll never forget stumbling onto my first Penguin Guide while shopping for CD's at a now-defunct store in Vancouver, B.C. called A&B Sound. I was up all night paging through the reviews. It was a kick to read what someone else thought about music you either liked or didn't like. If I recall correctly, one of the two guys who originally authored the Penguins, RIchard Cook and Brian Morton, passed away several years ago. The "post-partum" editions seemed to lack some of the spark of the earlier ones. i really enjoyed their style of insouciant British humor.

I think the biggest difference between the two, at least for me, can be boiled down to this. Do you like your women to just be good looking or would you also like them to have a personality?

Edited March 5, 2011 by Dave James

[John L]

try Max Harrison's old guides - not complete but they are to Yanow what Sonny Rollins is to Kenny G.

Yanow is dishonest - no one can review that much with any accuracy and/or consistency, and it shows.

Actually, I think that Yanow scores fairly well for accuracy and consistency. It is just that most of his reviews are rather shallow, which no doubt reflects the number of recordings for which he is responsible. He usually gives a couple lines about the artist, where the particular recording stands chronologically in his or her recording career, who is playing, slaps a genre label on the record, and then indicates whether or not some of the songs introduced on the recording "became standards."

As an information source for most of recorded jazz, it can be useful, even if not terribly insightful.

[JSngry]

Please point me to a better alternative.

Your ears?

Now there's a 20th Century notion!