The Rough Guide to Jazz: 100 Essential CDs

by Brian Priestley and Digby Fairweather

This title gives expert guidance on how to build a representative collection of jazz's finest music. It contains detailed reviews of 100 recordings, from King Oliver to Keith Jarrett, covering the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1858287324
• ISBN13: 9781858287324
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: Rough Guides
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 4.1" x 5.7"

Customer Reviews

Good place to start looking

While necessarily brief and limited, this book makes for a nice place to start expanding your jazz interests. Coverage of old and new, mainstream and avant-garde, is remarkably well-balanced. Some key figures (Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker) get two entries each, but for the most part it's one per artist. I'm sure many people will kvetch about not covering their own obscure (or not-so-obscure favorite), but for every artist you think is missing, there are two or three remarkable others. The notes are brief but informative, covering important biographical details and sideman contributions, and i've only noticed a couple of minor errors (which is more than can be said for many jazz guides!)A nice touch is the "We almost chose..." at the end of each entry, giving you two references for the price of one. All in all, this book is a good reference, if only because you can read it and learn new things without feeling like you're drowning in a sea of detail.

Jazz Starter

The Rough Guide Essential Jazz cd's is a fine pocket book that goes through 100 jazz cd's that are a nice sampling of the genre. The selections all are solid choices and unlike other entries in this series, jazz artists rarely, if ever, release greatest hits compilations, so the cd's are all studio or live efforts. The reviews of each album are short and to the point and provide a good overview for people who aren't jazz fans, but would like to get into this musical style.