The Penguin Guide to Jazz on Cd (Penguin Guide to Jazz on Cd, 6th Ed)

Rating:
Summary: Frustrating...
Review: The great thing about reviews is that no one ever really agrees on what is great and what is just ordinary. This book makes fun reading although I certainly do not use it as a strict buying guide. The fact that it references so many CDs is its key value because you can look up artists and CDs and get an opinion and some context on them. Therefore this is a great guide if you plan to collect jazz music. In my experience collecting jazz music is a bit of a journey and there are many paths to go down. This book is not perfect, it misses plenty of albums, but lists many more. It certainly lacks a decent overview of jazz history or a listing of seminal recordings. An intro of this type, as in the Gramophone classic CD guide, would be quite worthwhile. But overall, I'd recommend it for anyone who is a collector of jazz music.