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The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1,001 Best Albums

by Brian Morton

A 1,001-album route through jazz history

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Regular price $47.05 USD Sale price $28.23 USD
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Paperback New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Critical praise

    Praised by the Irish Times as “one of the great books of recorded jazz”

    The Irish Times praises it as one of the great books of recorded jazz.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A 1,001-album route through jazz history

Organized around 1,001 selected recordings, this substantial jazz reference uses albums as entry points into the development of the music and its twentieth-century context. Brian Morton revises and reassesses entries drawn from the earlier Penguin guide, combining album-focused commentary with updated biographical material, quotations, and interviews. Familiar landmarks such as Kind of Blue sit alongside less widely known recordings and unexpected selections, giving the book the shape of both a listening guide and a broad historical survey. Its browseable format supports quick consultation while also inviting comparison across artists, eras, and strands of jazz.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Jazz listeners building a foundational album-listening list
  • Collectors and music readers seeking album-by-album reference material
  • Jazz newcomers wanting historical context alongside recording recommendations

Themes

Jazz recordingsAlbum listeningTwentieth-century music historyJazz artists and biographiesMusic criticism

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

Richard Cook and Brian Morton's Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in 1001 Best Albums is an indispensible guide to the recordings that every fan should know. Richard Cook and Brian Morton's Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings is firmly established as the world's leading guide to the music. In this book, Brian Morton has picked out 1001 essential recordings from their acclaimed guide, adding new information, revising and reassessing each entry, and showing how these key pieces tell the history of the music - and with it the history of the twentieth century. These are the essential albums that that all true jazz fans should own, or - at the very least - have listened to, from Kind of Blue to lesser-known classics and more surprising choices. Full of fascinating updated biographical information, new quotes and interviews and, of course, highly opinionated and wittily trenchant critical reviews, the result is an endlessly browsable companion that will prove required reading for aficionados and jazz novices alike. 'One of the great books of recorded jazz; the other guides don't come close'
Irish Times 'It's the kind of book that you'll yank off the shelf to look up a quick fact and still be reading two hours later'
Fortune 'The leader in its field ... If you own only one book on jazz, it really should be this one'
International Record Review 'Indispensable and incomparable'
NME Brian Morton is a freelance writer and broadcaster who for many years presented Radio 3's jazz magazine Impressions and In Tune. Richard Cook (1957-2007) was formerly editor of The Wire and edited Jazz Review. He contributed to many other publications, including the New Statesman and his books included Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopaedia and It's About That Time: Miles Davis on Record.
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