From: gwl@specialist.genrad.com (Glenn W. Lea)
Newsgroups: rec.music.bluenote
Subject: Re: Penguin Guide: Short Review & 5 Star Recordings
Date: 27 Jan 93 13:18:56 GMT
Organization: GenRad, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: specialist.genrad.com

Well, my copy finally arrived ("The Penguin has Waddled") and I've
spent two evenings with it.  What a Tome!  I say give the guys a round
of applause :)  Now to the nits...

>andys@Ingres.COM (Andrew Sherman) writes:
>One thing I really like is that there is a consistent voice (or
>should that be two voices?). It's not like the Rolling Stone Jazz
>Record Guide where you don't know if the reviewer of any particular
>artist is their biggest fan or their worst enemy....

Actually, it sounds like one voice to me.  I like their use of "we"
throughout, which gives me the feeling that the reviews are joint
opinions, not one or the others'.  This could be just a device, I
realize, but it works for me, especially when they say that "we award
a 5th star to....".

As for the star ratings, they say it's a 4 star system.  Given that,
though my opinion of many individual ratings may differ, I think
they're fairly consistent.  I think they _should_ have used a
different notation for their Desert Island Picks than 5 stars, though.
If one takes the 5-stars at their word (DI disks only), I have no
problem with this list -- those are their personal favorites.  I mean,
if I could only take 38 (or whatever) disks to a desert island, I
might not take any Ornette either (sorry, Sandeep et al) but I would
take some Murray and Lacy, neither of whom got 5 stars either, though
they are deserving, IMO.  38 is a very small subset of 8,000 (or
whatever) albums.

In article <1993Jan26.041130.18061@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> wjh@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (william.j.hery) writes:
>
>In reading the reviews, I don't find them to be completely consistent--in
>fact some records which are co-led are reviewed under both artists and in 
>at least one case got different ratings!

Well, they do say in the intro that the ratings are subject to change.
It doesn't surprise me that this would happen occasionally in a book
this size.  What changed, btw?

>I find it hard to believe that this is entirely
>the work of two reviewers, especially if the recordings are reviewed with
>any care (meaning several close listenings). At 1200 pages...
[ lots of calculations]

Bill, consider the fact that Cook was editor of the Wire for 8 years
and Morton has been a contributor for much of that.  These guys are
professional record reviewers.  I think it's very possible for them to
have done this themselves, though I wouldn't rule out them asking,
say, an Ellingon "expert" to provide relative ratings of the
year-by-year Classics releases.  Note that in many of the surveys,
they spend much of the text discussing their "picks" and finesse the
description of the "lesser" releases.  See the Wayne Shorter
discussion for an example.  I really doubt they sat down and listened
to every one of these CDs within the last year or two; many many (or
most) of them were available on LP, which is where C&M probably first
encountered them and developed their opinions.

I, too, am bothered by some of the omissions (as mentioned, Bitches
Brew).  I think their criterion for inclusion was current
availability; perhaps they were unable to get a copy in the UK.  I
would imagine they would have to rely on distributors and record
companies for their copies and perhaps CBS/Sony just didn't get them a
copy of this.  Personally, I wish they had not excluded records for
this reason -- as regular rmb'ers know, "out of print" does not mean
"not available", just "hard to find".

>I suspect that some of the reviews are "cribbed" from other reviews,
>probalby in Wire

I checked some Morton reviews in a handful of old Wires and didn't
find any evidence of cribbing, which surprised the hell out of me. 

Finally, the appearance of the "Out to Lunch" simulacra by Hutcherson
and Hill on the DID list shouldn't be a surprise -- "Lunch", after
all, was once picked as the best jazz album of all time by the Wire's
writers.

Glenn