The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazzby Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler
Oxford University Press, 718 pp., $49.95
Since the first Encyclopedia of Jazz was published decades ago, it’s been the major jazz reference book. With this new edition it remains so. The principal editor here is Ira Gitler, who had been the main assistant of Leonard Feather, the book’s originator, until Feather died in 1994.
Initially, the book had features other than a biographical section, but here they’ve been dropped, as many more jazzmen have emerged since it was initially published. The Encyclopedia is set up alphabetically, with biographies of more than 3,300 musicians listed. They include birth and death dates, information about groups that performers have worked with or led and their recordings, influences, education, marriages, awards, film, and TV appearances. Nowhere else can you find as much information about so many jazz artists. Moreover, Gitler and his staff have gone to great lengths to assure that their information is accurate, and in some cases have been assisted by dedicated non-staff fans and scholars who have made valuable factual discoveries on their own.
However, in recent years a group of artists have arisen, sometimes called “new musicians,” who are hard to classify. They improvise and many have performed in indisputably jazz contexts, but have also drawn on non-jazz forms to create their musical vocabularies. Some may play in klezmer, Balkan, rock, Latino, or classical as well as jazz ensembles. It’s interesting to see which have been listed in the Encyclopedia and which left out. For example, Dave Douglas is listed in the book, but not John Zorn, despite the fact that both have recorded together in Zorn’s group Masada, which is a jazz quartet containing bassist Greg Cohen and drummer Joey Baron, who are also listed in this volume. Beyond this, Zorn has recorded with John Patton and appeared on albums playing the music of men like Sonny Clark, Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, and Freddie Redd, where he demonstrates that he can play traditional alto sax solos that resemble Phil Wood’s.
I personally would’ve been very happy if more “new musicians” had been in listed in the book, but in a volume like this, it’s surprising that so many got in. Official and quasi-official volumes like this usually do not give instant recognition to controversial avant-gardists. As it stands, however, it’s an excellent, extremely useful work, and perhaps when the next edition comes out, more musicians like Zorn, Roy Nathanson, and Joe Maneri will be cited.
This article appears in August 18 • 2000.