I am start to develop a reasonably large jazz collection but I want to learn more.

Are there any books on jazz that you'd recommend?

Here are my recommendations

Penguin Guide to Jazz On CD by Ricahrd Cook & Brian Morton

This is the perfect reference guide to jazz, it features a significant amount of jazz released on cd.

Over 1500 pages of jazz reviews, and something I look at before buying a jazz album (or after buying a jazz album)

Russian Jazz: New Indentity

you mentioned that you bought some of the Golden Years Russian Jazz albums released by Leo Records. This book which is edited by Leo Records owner Leo Feigin is an essential reference for all Russian Free Jazz of the late 70s and 80s. It is well writen and there are some very insightful articles in particular thouse of Efrim Barban.

Extended Play: Sounding Off From John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein by John Corbett

John Corbett is the head of the Atavistic 'Unheard Music Series', which have released some classic albums from Han Bennink, Peter Brotzmann, Sun Ra and other artists. Extended Play goes beyond just jazz, but still has a significant amount of information on jazz, particularly free jazz.

New Dutch Swing by Kevin Whitehead

This is a great book on the development of 'free jazz' and the 'dutch improv jazz scene'. Plenty of information on such Dutch Jazz Musicians as Han Bennink, Willem Breuker, Louis Andriessen and a variety of other Dutch jazz musicians. An Interesting read.

thank you!

I want to read the biography of Blue Note. If you do, tell me what its like.

Geoff, I was just wondering if you've encountered AMG's guide to Jazz. Does it offer any content that one couldn't just download from their website? or is just convenient print copy...

It's convenient print. The AMG site on the plus side is updated with new releases and reissues as they happen generally. While you would have to wait until whenever the next edition comes out. Another plus is the AMG site has all the different genres of music. So, you would not need to buy multiple books.

The reviews are exactly the same as in the books. Now the negative is that the AMG site is not as thorough in their proofreading. There are many mistakes on things like names, pictures and cover art.

A excellent book I would recommend is Geoff Dyer's book "But Beautiful”. It’s fiction but it’s excellent.



This site let's you see the changes between the 5th and 6th edition of the Penguin guide. There are no reviews just the rating changes and what was added or dropped.

Penguin Guide to Jazz Diffs: 5th vs. 6th Editions

The difference betwen the 4th and 5th Editon

Penguin Guide to Jazz Diffs: 4th vs. 5th Editions

thanks for the Penguin Guide Changes website Satchmo.