Yes, www.allmusic.com is a beautiful and astonishing internet tool for music interests. (and been browsing it a lot too!) but sometimes you need something you can read on the bus when you're into a long trip or maybe sometimes you enjoy reading in bed, you know! cheers and many thanks -- On Wed, 02 Apr 2003 08:47:01 Lang Thompson wrote:

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Penguin guide to jazz All music guide to jazz

I think all of the contents of the All Music guide can be found on the website (http://www.allmusic.com) along with much much more, not to mention search abilities by side personnel, song titles, etc. The advantage to All Music is that it's reasonably thorough and has tons of info but the drawbacks are that it's by numerous writers (even including me) who naturally have different approaches and the AMG books also tend to be a bit disorganized (try to find a particularly Ellington compilation for instance out of all the Ellington pages). I use the website constantly but haven't opened one of the books in maybe a couple of years.

I've liked the Penguin guide ever since it first appeared in the US even though to be honest I don't find it much use as an actual guide. Seems like the bulk of the records get 3 to 4 stars so little distinction is made that way and the written descriptions can be too brief or even contradict the star ratings in some cases. I also realize they need to focus on in-print releases for reasons of space but wish they could keep older items that will be reprinted, are still easily available or just have sufficient interest. But since the Penguin guide is written by two people it's pretty consistent as far as tone and attitude and they have pretty broad tastes so not much gets slighted offhand (except pop and light jazz almost completely ignored but then so what?). And it's also just lots of fun to browse: I've sat down to look up one release and then half an hour later will still be flipping through it.

Lang

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