All music guide to jazz : the experts' guide to the best jazz recordings /

There is certainly no current dearth of buyer's guides to recorded jazz. The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (LJ 3/1/95), The Penguin Guide to Jazz (Penguin, 1996), and Jazz: The Rough Guide (LJ 3/1/96) are now joined by a third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz (LJ 9/1/96. 1st ed.) and Musichound Jazz. These two guides are very similar in content and coverage, with some significant differences in approach. Both consist of biographical entries, ranging in length from a mere paragraph to several pages, followed by discographical listings with some kind of rating system. Musichound covers almost 1300 artists in 1390 pages, while All Music has over 1700 entries in 1378 pages (employing a somewhat smaller font). The biographical entries in both tend to be more in-depth than those found in Jazz: The Rough Guide and cover a much wider range of artists than found in the more conservative Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz. Quite helpful and easy to read, Musichound covers in essay style which recordings to buy first, which to buy next, which to avoid, and which are rare but worth hunting. It also manages to include several artists' birthdates that do not appear elsewhere, giving it added strength as a reference source. All Music presents its listings in chronological order, employing a system of symbols indicating essential collections and recommended first purchases, as well as a rating system. The discussion of each individual recording seems designed to stand on its own, which makes for some repetition. This edition of All Music corrects many of the errors that plagued earlier ones. Both books are recommended; the library that can only obtain one might opt for All Music, since it is more comprehensive, but it would be a very close call.‘Michael Colby, Univ. of California, Davis (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.