Someday I will visit London; until then I will hold onto this book to be my guide of the city where famous Americans lived, worked and loved. It is a wonderful book. Someday I will go to London and I will be able to follow in the steps of famous Americans, and join their experiences with mine.

Brian Morton takes you on a walk (with street-by-street maps) of Paris through the eyes and lives of famous Americans who lived, worked and loved in Paris. You can feel and live in your imagination their lives - through gossip, fact, or read between the lines - a wonderful vacation from my reading chair. . . I can't wait to visit Paris with this book in hand.

This is an encyclopedia of Contemporary Composers which politically correctly covers a lot of unbias international composers. (For instances, composers from Taiwan.) It also includes young talented composers. Every composers has good (1) biographical information (2) list of compositions and (3) an article about the composer. If this is only one book that I can get in this subject, I will choose this book, but not this first edition. The second edition was published by a different publisher. If you want to buy this book, you should go for the second edition.

First of all, STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING is a very smooth and easy read. Morton's prose continually moves forward and yet achieves a fine, uncluttered grace. I read the 328 pages in a single day. What I loved most is the story here of an aging writer's life. It's funny and poignant. There is so much charm in the book and yet Morton manages to sidestep the danger of giving us a saccharin view of the writer's world. As a woman (and a writer), I greatly admire the rendering of the female characters here, especially Heather, the young, ambitious graduate student who is writing a thesis on the work of Leonard Schiller. Leonard's relationship to his 40-year-old daughter Ariel, who has yet to find herself, is heartfelt. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the writer's life.

Starting Out in the Evening is a joy to read. With deceptively simple, beautifully constructed prose, Brian Morton tells a compelling story - I couldn't put this book down after reading the first two pages - and deals with some pretty big themes, e.g. what does it mean to be an artist? In so doing Morton has created characters that are so utterly lifelike they live on in your memory long after the final page is read and although it deals with serious themes, it is never heavy handed and contains a good deal of humor.

The unlikely hero of this remarkable novel is Leonard Schiller, a frail, aging, out of print novelist, whose lifelong devotion to his art raises the fundamental question regarding the relationship of art to life and vice versa. However, the story belongs nearly as much to his 39 year old daughter, Ariel, a child of the 60s struggling with the issues of daily life while retaining the capacity to brighten the lives of those around her.

Heather and Casey provide marvelous counterpoint to the main protagonists: she is the graduate student who blazes her way into Schiller's dignified world in hopes of resurrecting his career while jump starting her own, while he is the level headed intellectal drawn to the charm and levity of the less predictable Ariel. These beautifully developed relationships ring true in every detail and are never sentimental.

It is not possible to convey what is best about this novel by summarizing the plot or describing the characters. It is Morton's writing that makes this book such a remarkable experience. Starting Out in the Evening is a must read - don't miss it!

This book sat on my bookshelf for nearly five years, and I cannot believe I allowed it to. It is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. It is deep and sentimental in topic, and yet it reads like a fast paced novel.

The characters are intense and mulit-dimensional: Leonard Schiller, a seventy something writer who's life has been dedicated to his art; Ariel, his forty year old daughter in search of her life's meaning and someone to father a child; and Heather, a twenty something aspiring writer and critic who decides to write a master's thesis on Schiller's work.

The relationship of the two women will Schiller is incredibly portrayed, as with Ariel Schiller is a loving and nurturing man, and with Heather, his passions are reignited and she makes him feel young. Also interesting is the way Heather and Ariel portray Schiller, and also the way these two women change as Schiller's life circumstances change.

The parallels drawn between the three characters is fascinating, especially since each person is so different, and at such a different place in life. Ironically, even though each feels so different from the other, when the older two are compared to Heather in their memories, it seems they are more similar then they think.

At the end of this beautiful book, one cannot help but wonder what happens to the characters. Schiller's life goal at the end is to complete his final novel, and I so wish he were a real person so that I could read it. He is a beautiful charcter that brings memories of Morrie Schwartz from Tuesdays With Morrie.

If you are looking for a touching, moving, beautifully written book, don't wait any longer. Pick this book up and you will not put it down. Even when you are finished, the characters live on.

This is an excellent guide to Jazz. It's a great reference to the history of recorded Jazz. They also discuss the sound quality of many of the cd issues, which is most helpful. The only real flaw is the omission of Glenn Miller as an important Jazz/Swing figure. Miller's arranged swing music is as important to the history of Jazz as any other band leader. Miller was not the first to arrange jazz music, and by no means the last to do so. Many of these other arrangers are reviewed in this book, but not Miller! Glenn's Army Air Force band could swing as hard as any other. This is a great book, but why they left out one of America's most important bandleaders is a mystery. Glenn deserves better.

Indispensible. Pithy, accurate descriptions of recorded jazz from New Orleans at the turn of the century to the most up to date improvisers. I love to browse this volume and have used it over and again in selecting my own music.

If you haven't bought one of these books, buy this one. If you own the 5th edition, however, save your money.

You have three primary choices for these "jazz guides": All Music Guide, MusicHound, and Penguin. AMG includes reviews of out-of-print CDs, and older LPs, which can be frustrating because you'll read glowing reviews of albums you won't be able to find. MusicHound is a compilation of reviews by different authors, so you can forget about any kind of consistency. Penguin is informative, contemporary, and consistent. It's your best choice.

This book features 1601 pages of CD reviews and artist biographies, not including the introduction and index. Whatever your level of knowledge, however long you've spent listening to jazz, you're sure to discover something new in this book. And that's a tremendous reward for Amazon's price.

On the other hand, as an update, this edition doesn't impress me. Significant artists like Mel Lewis and Carl Fontana still lack entries. Mick Goodrick, Christian McBride, and others have actually been removed. The artists suggest, in their introduction, that those noting omissions should get a life. Of course, no one's perfect. There are, however, both minor omissions and glaring omissions, and this edition still includes too many of the latter.

Jim McNeely, for example, is listed on page 1005, along with four of his CDs -- the most recent, from 1992. The authors ignore "The Power and the Glory" [Storyville, 2001] and "Play Bill Evans" [Stunt Records, 2002], which are forgivable omissions. I believe "In This Moment" [Stunt Records, 2003] was released too late to be included.

But also missing are McNeely's "Lickety Split" [New World Records, 1997], which was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1998; "Nice Work" [Dacapo Records, 2000], which was nominated for two Grammies in 2001; and "Group Therapy" [OmniTone, 2001], which was nominated for a Grammy in 2002. You'd think an artist nominated for four Grammies would receive a more complete listing in a book like this.

These are limited examples of a larger trend: this edition doesn't show enough improvement over its previous edition to be worth updating. If you don't own the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD yet, then my criticisms are nitpicks. It's a great investment for a reasonable price, and you should buy it. If you already own an older edition, however, I can't recommend you buy this. Spend your money buying a new CD, instead. Let's hope that 2005 will bring a 7th edition that will amaze us all, anew.

This really is an indispensable book for the jazz collector. The biggest advantage it has over the books referred to in some of the customer reviews is that it lists session information. If, like me, you like to wander into used record stores or Goodwills, you'll appreciate the listings of personnel and recording dates that you can find in this book.

The reviews are well written and very witty. The writers treat their subject seriously but not stodgily and, in some instances, their geographic distance allows them a measure of independence from US opinions of certain artists. Their treatment of two musicians in particular, Kenton and Brubeck, are unexpectedly fair, acknowledging their weakness, while pointing out what is interesting and valuable about their best music.

As to the attention given to European and avant-garde jazz: Thank God. American critics and fans alike seem to think that be-bop and hard bop are the only kinds of jazz worth considering. While one might quibble with some of Cook's and Morton's opinions-I tend to bypass most fusion albums-seasoned jazz collectors will be able to figure out what they're getting into from the accurate descriptions contained here. If you buy a Sam Rivers disc expecting something like Ben Webster, you can't say you weren't forewarned by these guys.

I do wonder why some readily available discs were not included. Gerry Mulligan's Pacific Jazz stuff is all still in print and isn't reviewed here (although it is included in previous editions).

My only complaint is that the small print, running across a fairly wide page, is a little tough for those of us who are bi-focaled. Otherwise, I hope to see this book in many editions to come.

The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, Fifth Edition
Richard Cook & Brian Morton

It may seem slightly ironic that the best book on jazz recordings was written by a couple of Brits, but there it is. Richard Cook and Brian Morton have compiled the most informative and well-written collection of jazz cd reviews available, but the book is much more than that: from its pages one may discern the pattern of influences and innovations that make jazz so exciting to explore, and learn more than a little about the history of the music and its principal as well as obscure artists.

Having this book around is having access to the opinions of a couple of guys who have been listening to jazz all their lives, have the most comprehensive jazz collections imaginable, and who impart their wisdom with the most succinct and inventive blend of wit and enthisiasm for the music we love to be found within the pages of a book. Yes, there are typos, errors, and Richard and Brian diss some of my favorite albums, but some familiarity with their tastes will allow the reader to make a well-informed appraisal of whether a given album is something one wishes to listen to. The book is written from a vantage-point that takes in the whole history of jazz, and more often than not their reviews are "spot-on": they know which recordings are indispensible for those of us who haven't listened to as much music as they have.

In the late 1990s when I managed a million-dollar-a-year music store, we kept the third edition of this book behind the counter and consulted it almost daily, whether to answer customer queries, settle disputes between posing hipster musicsellers, or simply to "learn more about the product" (alas, jazz only accounted about 4% of our sales). Nowadays I keep this edition in the kitchen and peruse it while I'm waiting for the tea to steep, musing about my next puchase.

If you love jazz you need this book. You'll probably need to buy it from Amazon too, as any copy on the shelf of your local bookstore is likely to have the binding cracked in several places from in-store customer perusal.

Clearly, this is what is meant by 'literary fiction.' The main character in this first novel, Sally Burke, is lovingly drawn and totally convcing. That's important because the author of course is a man. (Now that brings up an interesting question. How would I know if the character is totally convincing as a female since I too am a male. Oh well, let's move on.) If you love to read and want to get totally drawn into someone else's life (don't we all), you'll love this book. But if it's plot you're looking for, look elsewhere. This book mirrors real life. It goes from episode to episode with none wrapping up too neatly or too compelling. Sally is a lot like you and me, I think. Not as successful a book as "Starting Out in the Evening" but worth a read. Looking forward to this writer's third novel.

This was a fantastic treat of a novel and I couldn't put it down. Not like its a suspense novel (!), but there were so many poignant details noted through out the book, it was like the secrets of the world revealed. I kept wondering when I'd get my next revelation as I read. And it was chock full of them. Yeah Brian Morton! Hurray for the Dylanist!

this is by far one of the best books I ever read