All Music Guide To Jazz vs. Penguin Guide To Jazz

[Chuck Nessa]

And a mistake.

[JSngry]

Depending on what's between them, your ears can either be your best friend or your worst enemy.

[Chuck Nessa]

You should measure them against something and argue or not. Otherwise......strokes be strokes.

[Christiern]

Allan is right about Yanow. This is a guy whose goal in life is to listen to every jazz recording ever made. Well, he must be pursuing that goal, because his shallow bios don't reflect any serious listening—they are full of ridiculous misinformation, much of which proves that he does not even check the liner notes. Yanow is an extension of the late Leslie Gourse and he has pushed his way into every nook and cranny of the internet. When I Google and see his byline, I just move on. All Music Guide has always been unreliable, because so much of is data is computer generated and not checked. At least I think so. For example, I don't recall producing any of the Hot Five sessions—please correct me if I'm wrong.

[sonnymax]

...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.

Richard Cook passed away in August of 2007. Although he didn't live to see the completion of the ninth edition published the following year, I think it's wrong to view this "last" Penguin Guide as anything less than a Cook-Morton collaboration.

[JSngry]

You should measure them against something and argue or not. Otherwise......strokes be strokes.

And stories be stories.

I could suggest reading the music press of the day for something to argue with/against/whatever. If you're listening to old music, read old magazines and such. But all these after-the-fact "guides"...I'm just not convinced. History is so easily owned. Less so the present (or then-present). propaganda machines (then or now) aside.

[sonnymax]

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

Here, Here!! My brother visited England in the mid-seventies and gave me a copy of the early Modern Jazz: The Essential Records 1945-70. I loved it, having never before read a book in which jazz was discussed in such a thoughtful and engaging manner. I've also enjoyed Harrison's contributions to the subsequent books The Essential Jazz Records Vol. 1 - Ragtime to Swing and The Essential Jazz Records Vol. 2 - Modernism to Postmodernism.

There's no comparison between the Penguin Guide and AMG. The former is a vast collection of critical reviews. At best, the latter offers some help in sorting out what's been issued and might still be available. The inaccuracies and outright errors in the AMG far surpass those in the PG, and the vast range of reviewers employed at AMG greatly reduces the reliability of the opinions offered, when the reviewer has actually heard the recording, that is.

[Tom 1960]

While I use All Music Guide and Amazon as resources on potential purchases, it's you folks here on the board who convince me to take the plunge.

[Brute]

I own several volumes of the Penguin guide (thank god for public library weeding) and I use AMG almost daily. Neither are perfect but both have their merits and I'd rather read a crappy review than nothing at all. I must say though that when it comes to buying recordings, neither has ever steered me wrong. That is to say, if a recording is rated 4-5 stars in either resource, chances are very good that it's not a waste of coin to pick up a copy.

Edited March 7, 2011 by Brute

[BruceH]

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.

What's wrong with being a good generalist?

[JSngry]

Here's what I wonder - all these people who rely on these guides, if they see an album that either looks interesting, and/or has players on it that they either like or are curious about, and/or is an album they've heard about as being "important"/"fascinating"/etc. and if one or both of these guides gives an indifferent-or-worse review to said album, will they buy it anyway?

Same for players - if one or both of these guides paint a picture of player X as a marginal or otherwise "not really important" player, does that end your curiosity about said player right then and there?

[John L]

Here's what I wonder - all these people who rely on these guides, if they see an album that either looks interesting, and/or has players on it that they either like or are curious about, and/or is an album they've heard about as being "important"/"fascinating"/etc. and if one or both of these guides gives an indifferent-or-worse review to said album, will they buy it anyway?

Same for players - if one or both of these guides paint a picture of player X as a marginal or otherwise "not really important" player, does that end your curiosity about said player right then and there?

I think part of the issue here is that, when people first get interested in jazz, the sheer number of artists, styles, recordings, etc. might seem overwhelming at first. Time and money are limited. So a negative review in a guide might cause something or somebody to be put on a back burner for a while.

[David Ayers]

The guides I used at first predate the Penguin. They mainly identified key artists and their key recordings. That was a long time ago. Now, apart from occasional reference to AMG I don't use guides or reviews, though I take tips on this board. I found jazz by accident, was guided by The Wire during its first year or two, and also acquired one or two books which I'd have to look out again to tell you what they are.

As I see it, you DO want to know what are the stone-cold classics by great artists that everyone kinda agrees on. You DO want to be warned off a release that is just unacceptable for technical, stylistic or other reasons (you might buy it anyway...). In between you buy up things by artists you love, and sample artists who look interesting. For that you might need discographical information and information on available releases. Whether, say, Byrd in Hand gets 3 1/2 or 4 stars from AMG or Penguin is neither here nor there. But yes, you need to know its a hard bop record and not heavy metal.

Edited March 7, 2011 by David Ayers

[Eric]

Earl on I relied on the Len Lyons "101 Best Jazz Albums" book (which ultimately mentioned or gave "soft recommendations" to another couple hundred. I also relied pretty heavily on Downbeat (new issues or library copies) as well as the Rolling Stone Jazz album guide. This was all circa early 80s, pre-CD, pre-internet.

None of these guides are a silver bullet. At this point I use them for general reference. I do have biases towards each - while I like the European focus of Penguin, I find it is sometimes at the expense of US artists (some of whom are summarily trashed). AMG is the ultimate YMMV guide. Plenty of 4-5 star stuff that is very average along with a bunch of 2 star gems.

I also look at amazon reviews. Generally speaking people write about albums they like, but I "trust" that source as much as any - knowing the bias that might exist.

[JSngry]

When I first got interested in jazz, I would pretty much buy anything that gave the impression of being jazz (thanks in no small to abundant cutout bins, sure, but there's sharity blogs aplenty today that are marginally less expensive...). a lot of it i liked, and some of it is not particularly well-regarded critically, even today. But I can make the case for it, not because I have the weight of "critical authority" on my side, but because I discovered it on my own, listened to it on my own, and formed an opinion on my own, an opinion which morphs as the years go by and there's a broader frame of reference in both music and life to which to put it up against. In other words, I have my own opinion based on my own life. The musics have a meaning to me as more than just "classic recordings", which is really just another word for "an object". AFAIC, that should be the goal of every non-casual listener of/to music.

That's what I don't like about these "guides". Useful as reference tools to see what's been done, yeah,, sure. But if evrybody follows the same book, everybody's going to be looking for - and finding - the same thing, with the same expectations. It's one more step to the codification of the music as being one set "thing". Even if that is inevitable, I don't like it, and I know it to be at root a falsehood.

People don't need "guides" nearly as much as they need desire, hunger, & instinct. Otherwise, it gets to be just another form of "jazz education" - somebody decides they want to become a "jazz fan" and instead they put themselves in somebody else's hands and essentially say "make me one". Just as we now have an overabundance of cookie-cutter "jazz musicians", so it gets to be with "jazz fans". I'd rather see somebody who really really digs Hank Crawford and is indifferent towards Jackie McLean than to see somebody who has all of the "classics" in their collection and can name all the names but who can't sing even one solo off of any of them.

Hopelessly impossible notions, I know, especially since jazz has pretty much (is 90% too high a guess? Realistically?) become a re-creative music, but still...

[A Lark Ascending]

That's a bit like saying you'd rather people travelled around the country without a map - found it all themselves. Quite a nice idea but hardly practical. I know I gratefully valued the steer these guides gave me, but I never followed them slavishly.

As has been said by many above, these guides get used as one of a number of influences - chance encounters on the radio, recommendations by friends, the fact a band turned up in your neck of the woods, magazine articles. I doubt if any but a handful of listeners treat them as the sole guide to salvation.

I've never found either to claim an exclusive insight into what really matters (if you want that you'd be better off looking to the lectern carriers who frequent jazz websites). Cook and Morton can be passionate and, at times, belligerent and deliberately provocative - but surely those are the 'strong opinions' much beloved of this site?

Edited March 7, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

Oh, I had guides all right..the press of the day, a few books...just not Guides. The goal (mine any way) then was all about digging players, not so much which records you "should" own if you wanted a "representative collection" or some such. It - the whole thing, press, books, my own goal - was more about finding music that mattered to me personally than it was Becoming A More Refined Listener Through Acquainting Myself With The Classics. No use for that then, even less for it now.

It's a different thing to respond to players and then go off all over the place looking for god only knows what you'll find than it is to hear something you like and then get a book/website/"Guide"/whatever to tell you where to go if you want to hear more of the same.

But such are the times. People apparently have that need now more than before. Far be it from me to object to The People Getting What The People Want.

That's always a good thing!

[Big Beat Steve]

That's a bit like saying you'd rather people travelled around the country without a map - found it all themselves. Quite a nice idea but hardly practical. I know I gratefully valued the steer these guides gave me, but I never followed them slavishly.

Not the best analogy in the world, IMHO - sorry. What JSngry meant to say (if I got him correctly - and if I did, I agree with him) is that he'd rather see people travel around the country NOT without a map but without a "generalist" guide that tells them "what to see and where to go". Wouldn't it be much more interesting to discover your own niches and places to go that you find fascinating even if they are considered unworthy of a mention in such a guide?

In short, get off the trodden paths of what "you are supposed to listen to in order to get the essentials of the music" and search out musicians or styles instead that appeal to your SUBJECTIVE tastes, even if this means that you end up having far more records by some artist who - by the "accepted wisdom of jazz history" - is an also-ran in his field and time but just happens to be hugely enjoyable to those who buy his records evben today - much more so than maybe a huge "name" artist who just does not cut it with some listeners. Nothing wrong with that - build your own tastes.

[JSngry]

That's a bit like saying you'd rather people travelled around the country without a map - found it all themselves. Quite a nice idea but hardly practical. I know I gratefully valued the steer these guides gave me, but I never followed them slavishly.

Not the best analogy in the world, IMHO - sorry. What JSngry meant to say (if I got him correctly - and if I did, I agree with him) is that he'd rather see people travel around the country NOT without a map but without a "generalist" guide that tells them "what to see and where to go". Wouldn't it be much more interesting to discover your own niches and places to go that you find fascinating even if they are considered unworthy of a mention in such a guide?

In short, get off the trodden paths of what "you are supposed to listen to in order to get the essentials of the music" and search out musicians or styles instead that appeal to your SUBJECTIVE tastes, even if this means that you end up having far more records by some artist who - by the "accepted wisdom of jazz history" - is an also-ran in his field and time but just happens to be hugely enjoyable to those who buy his records evben today - much more so than maybe a huge "name" artist who just does not cut it with some listeners. Nothing wrong with that - build your own tastes.

That's pretty much it, thanks.

Although at some point, yeah, it's a good thing to know the classics and all that, be able to discuss them intelligently & objectively and all that too, it's really not the ultimate object of the game, at least now from my POV, and it should really be something that one grows into at ones own pace, almost as an after-effect of one's own hunts & obseeions and pursuits than it should be what one consciously sets out to do. Unless the object of your game is to be a lecturer, Guide Writer, or some other Cultural Dictate-er.

But then, that's true about life in general, isn't it? Whatever real wisdom you really have is acquired rather than received, no? And it's probably not complete, by any stretch of the imagination, which is good, because nobody can really know everything about everything, if only because if you did, you'd have been alive before during and after it all happened, and who the hell can or needs to be alive that long, eh?

[John L]

Not the best analogy in the world, IMHO - sorry. What JSngry meant to say (if I got him correctly - and if I did, I agree with him) is that he'd rather see people travel around the country NOT without a map but without a "generalist" guide that tells them "what to see and where to go". Wouldn't it be much more interesting to discover your own niches and places to go that you find fascinating even if they are considered unworthy of a mention in such a guide?

I don't think that there is a simple answer to that question. If you have never been the American South West, you are going to want to see the Grand Canyon. It may not have the same subjective appeal to you as other places in the area, but You need to check it out. I see that as the purpose of a good guide book. Coming to jazz for the first time, you need something that points you in the direction of those cornerstones of the music that help you come to grips with the big picture of what jazz is and how it developed. Once you have done that, then you are off to discover your own niches and places.

That said, it is rather dangerous to put too much faith in one particular guide that gives only one interpretation and set of criteria for evaluation, even if it is good, thoughtful and consistent. I consider the Penguin Guide to be in that category (although I only know the first few editions of it). Cook and Morton are thoughtful and consistent, but systematically trash what I consider to be some of the most enjoyable and important jazz.

[king ubu]

I don't think the question is about using these guides as sole sources of information and trusting them... I'd be surprised if someone handled them that way! I've never, ever, made my way through a whole Penguin guide, and don't think I ever will (I've got five of them now, just for the fun of it and because they're cheap when you've got some patience). More often than not I look up stuff that I already have, just to see what someone else might think of these records... or I'll be checking out a few things by artists I'm already familiar with. In some cases, I've used the Penguin to check out "new" artists, too - but more with old jazz, where I find them very reliable and where I had not idea where to start - clarinetist George Lewis, for instance... what a flood of albums there are... of course I could have asked here, but then I'd have had to start with 25 of them, I guess... not that the overwhelming enthusiasm and love for the music here is a bad thing, but usually, a mixture of sources (personal recommendations, concerts, web discussions, web searches on AMG, AAJ, wherever) works best for me. There's not one existing source that I'd want to rely on exclusively!

Btw, in the latest issue of The Wire (march 2011) there's a short note by Brian Morton on Richard Cook at the beginning in the reader's letters section (he is answering to some other guy's story about Cook that must have been in the Jan or Feb issue - haven't bought those, I think).

[A Lark Ascending]

Not the best analogy in the world, IMHO - sorry. What JSngry meant to say (if I got him correctly - and if I did, I agree with him) is that he'd rather see people travel around the country NOT without a map but without a "generalist" guide that tells them "what to see and where to go". Wouldn't it be much more interesting to discover your own niches and places to go that you find fascinating even if they are considered unworthy of a mention in such a guide?

In short, get off the trodden paths of what "you are supposed to listen to in order to get the essentials of the music" and search out musicians or styles instead that appeal to your SUBJECTIVE tastes, even if this means that you end up having far more records by some artist who - by the "accepted wisdom of jazz history" - is an also-ran in his field and time but just happens to be hugely enjoyable to those who buy his records evben today - much more so than maybe a huge "name" artist who just does not cut it with some listeners. Nothing wrong with that - build your own tastes.

Oh, I agree with all you say. The most annoying word on jazz boards (well, apart from 'AWESOME!!!!') is 'Essential'.

It's just that I don't find either book to be an ultimate "generalist" guide.

The first guides I used were the Joachim Berendt 'Jazz Book' (my primer of the world beyond jazz-rock back in '77) and Roy Carr's 'Illustrated Guide to Jazz'. I didn't buy a Penguin until the early 90s. It was far from 'generalist' because it only printed what was readily available in the UK; what is more it had a wide coverage of European jazz outside of the UK. By that time I had a reasonable idea of the orthodox version of jazz history and also of UK jazz; what Penguin did was give me some ideas about where to look in mainland Europe, especially Italy.

By contrast, AMG (which I discovered later in the decade) was largely Amerocentric - which was ideal for what I wanted. Coverage of things like Hank Mobley or Bobby Hutcherson was pretty detailed, so gave me a steer on which of the many recordings to make a start with.

I think publishers like to present these books as 'The Definitive Guide'. I'm not sure their authors see it that way; I'm certain most listeners just use them as a way of finding what might be on the menu whilst also visiting other restaurants.

[Edit: For me the heyday of using these guides was the 90s. A ravenous appetite for jazz but pre-Internet. I don't think either has the same drawing power for me as it had then because the web has vastly increased the number of reference points. Even in the late-90s getting intrigued about a recording from Penguin or AMG was no guarantee you'd ever hear it - in pre-Amazon and its ilk days ordering recordings outside the norm was a difficult process.]

Edited March 8, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

Roy Carr's 'Illustrated Guide to Jazz'.

That was a fun book! I had it after I pretty much knew all the names/etc. so it was good for finding about albums (notably the Warne Marsh Wave sides) that I didn't know existed.

Very early on, and especially now, I don't really care what "crtical opinion" is about a record. I just want to know that it exists. If for whatever reason I'm on the fence, I'll ask around to people I trust, and even then might get it anyway, if the curiosity is piqued enough (not as often these days, but still more than is convenient and/or practical).

It's good (well, "good") to know the conventional wisdom when deciding what to buy, but it's even better to ignore it - just dive in and find out for yourself. Very few recordings cost all that much more than a decent restaurant meal, and hell, I got stuff in the fridge almost always, so oif it comes to that...

There's not all that many things in life that you can really do by yourself. Discovering music is one of them, or close enough to it, if you want/let it.

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm not one for 'critical opinion' either - I find people reading onto music their views quite tiresome. There can't be anything more tedious than the 'Why does everyone enthuse about Bottleheimer?; Porkenheimer's 1934 Wittenberg recording is infinitely superior' type comments you get in the classical critical world.

What I do like are:

a) Above all - people trying to articulate their excitement and enthusiasm for music.

b) People with a knowledge of music who can articulate in lay terms (and with some humility) what is going on musically - Humphrey Lyttleton's two books on early jazz are superb on all of those counts.

c) Historical accounts of the development of jazz that are based on rigorous research and an attempt to view it through the evidence rather than make it fit a preconceived theory. I think Chris A's 'Bessie' does this wonderfully (whilst also carrying off the difficult trick of communicating a) as well).

Edited March 8, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[JSngry]

What else I liked about that Carr book was that it had pics of lots of LP covers at a time when such things were not always easily found.

I have no problem with critical opinion - or lively discussion thereof - so long as all involved realize that ultimately it is opinion. For every yin there's a yang. No exceptions. Those who won't/don't/can't accept that are not ones I want to deal with.