All Music Guide to Jazz is a non-fiction

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

 book that is an encyclopedic referencing of jazz music

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 compiled under the direction of All Media Guide

All Media Guide

All Media Guide , is the company which owns and maintains Allmusic, Allgame and Allmovie. AMG was founded in 1990 by popular-culture archivist Michael Erlewine....

. The first edition, All Music Guide to Jazz: the Best CDs, Albums & Tapes, appeared in 1994 and was edited

Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

 by Ron Wynn

Ron Wynn

Ron Wynn is a music critic, author, and allmusic editor. Wynn was the editor of the first edition of The All Music Guide to Jazz , and from 1993 to 1994 served as the jazz and rap editor of the All Music Guide. Wynn is the former editor of New Memphis Star and the former chief jazz and pop music...

 with Michael Erlewine

Michael Erlewine

Michael Erlewine is an American musician, astrologer, and Internet entrepreneur who founded All Music Guide in 1991.- Background :...

 and Vladimir Bogdanov (head of the All Music Guide book series). The book's fourth edition was released on November 27, 2002 and was edited by Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra and Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...

.

Content

The book's back cover touts that the book contains ratings for close to 20,000 albums and 1,700 musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 biographies

Biography

A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...

. Artists are listed alphabetically and include some of the following: birth and death dates, classification (vocals, guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

, drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

s, etc.), a biography, a discography

Discography

Discography is the study and listing of the details concerning sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified musical genres...

. The discography listings include a five star rating, the music label it was released on, and the date as well as possibly reviews of certain albums. These reviews are done by "respected critics" from Jazz Times and Coda.

There are also thirty essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

s on different styles along with "top lists" and extensive charts on the evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

/lineage of the jazz.

Reception

It is often considered "the quintessential jazz encyclopedia" and "a must-have reference for anyone interested in the world of recorded jazz past and present." Previous to this version, when albums weren't reviewed on five star scale, there was some confusion, but "in the long run what the editors have to say is more important than any rating scale." Also, previous versions have also relied heavily on few reviews to comment on many albums, which "tends to weaken" the book.

The added features are welcomed, since they give readers a "close-up view of the artists" within the jazz culture. The essays in particular are "exceptionally well researched and written".

See also

• All Music Guide to the Blues
• The Penguin Guide to Jazz
  The Penguin Guide to Jazz
  The Penguin Guide to Jazz is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which are currently available in Europe or the United States...
  
  
• Allmusic