Comments on: Mayhem, Music and Miscellany

By: JVK

JVK — Sun, 31 May 2020 22:43:04 +0000

I’m very sorry to have taken this long in my thanking folks for their thoughtful replies to my asking about the Penguin Guide. Looks like my summer reading may be all planned out for me, even though it’s looking less likely it will be at the beach this year. Thanks again!

By: Waldo Melendez

Waldo Melendez — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 16:31:26 +0000

I have the only poster of Mario Bauza last performance. (Frankfurt Germany). Signatures on the poster :
1. Mario Bauza
2. Victor Paz
3.Graciela
4. Patato Valdez
5. Bobby Sanabria
6. Manny Duran just to name a few.

By: japhy

japhy — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 15:51:48 +0000

Jazz Messenger bassist Jymie Merritt also passed, on April 10 at age 93.

https://downbeat.com/news/detail/jazz-messengers-bassist-jymie-merritt-dies-at-93

By: GST

GST — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 18:50:42 +0000

Al i thought we agreed there would be no more mentions of Shades ??

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 18:45:15 +0000

I’m a big fan of record guides, and Penguin guide gets highest recommendation. Unlike the AllMusic guides, they didn’t regularly give out five-star reviews to three-star records. The writing style was erudite/academic in tone, and one could sense a deep sense of empathy for the music being described and reviewed.

By: Art Klempner

Art Klempner — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 16:33:49 +0000

I love the U.K. jazz records for 2 reasons. 1) the covers are different than the U.S. issues and often very artistic and really shiny. 2) for me the pressings are very good with a full sound.
As far as the written word is concerned, all those mentioned have a lot to offer. I really like Harvey Pekar’s observations and Leonard Feather’s old blindfold tests .

By: James Allen

James Allen — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 11:41:17 +0000

The Philip Larkin,great poet and professional curmudgeon,is well worth reading for his scathing and humorous dismissal of anything remotely modern!

By: James Allen

James Allen — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 11:35:03 +0000

I have five very well thumbed editions of the Penguin Guide from 1992-2006 and they have proved to be an indispensable resource over the years.
Jazz on Record I bought on the day it was published in 1968 and is still often referred to especially for the important contribution of Paul Oliver’s blues reviews. Very authoritative!
One important publication that hasn’t been mentioned is The Essential Jazz Records volumes 1 and 2 Published by Mansell in the UK both vol.1 Ragtime to Swing (1984) and vol.2 Modernism to Post Modernism (2000) contain in depth articles by four of the greatest jazz journalists of all time,Max Harrison,Eric Thacker,Charles Fox and Stuart Nicholson.Well worth searching for!

By: Seeforyourself

Seeforyourself — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:38:23 +0000

“All What Jazz” is a collection of jazz reviews by the poet Philip Larkin. As a kid Larkin was a jazz fan, his first record was Ray Nobles “Tiger Rag,” but after college he stopped listening to jazz bc of the war. He was brought back to Jazz in 1961 when he was hired to write record reviews for a London paper. Jazz had changed between 1940 and 1960(!) and Larkin was not impressed. I recommend this as an interesting artifact, it is not a good starting point for a new jazz enthusiast. But if you’ve already read a lot of jazz literature and you want something really different check this out. Larkin is an excellent writer, and his reviews are short. The book is full of love for Larkin’s preferred style of Jazz, big band, and also full of questionable opinions, hostile reviews of Coltrane. Also, the reviews are of vinyl records, so every record in the book could still be floating around somewhere.

By: Joe L

Joe L — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 23:54:58 +0000

The Penguin guide is fine – decent resource, part of the picture.

My all-time favorite jazz recordings reference guide is Jazz on Record, published in 1968. Given the publication year, it obviously leaves out a lot, but the contemporaneous nature of the artist reviews and album recommendations is what makes it so unique and interesting. It is extremely knowledgeable, very detailed, opinionated, and more than a little (enjoyably) bitchy. It’s the best.