From boogie-woogie to bebop and beyond, the sounds and rhythms of Jazz is mercurial- always creative, seldom static, frequently cultish and often contentious. The latest edition of The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz is the essential companion to making an acquaintance with Jazz. It will inform you and it will not talk down to you. There are over 3,500 entries detailing every artist who has had an impact on the development of jazz since it headed out from New Orleans and spread to New York, London, Paris, Montreux, Munich and way beyond. Here are all the legends whose genius is evoked in a single name - Ella, Duke, Satchimo, Bird, Miles, Trane, the Hawk, Monk and Diz - together with all the younger talent - Brad mehidau, jacky terrasson, Nicholas Payton and the youngest phenomenon of them all, Norah Jones. They line up with modern-day giants of the genre such as John Schofield, Dave Holland, Joe Lovano and Keith Jarrett. All entries have a detailed album chronology, together with a five-star rating system.The text is non-pompous, non-judgemental yet friendly and constructive. All the text has been taken from the gigantic database of The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, first published in 1992. the EPM and its spin-off series swiftly and firmly established itself as the undisputed champion of all contemporary-music reference books.

Essential companion to this distinctive music style.

This volume acts as a reference to the 1000 top albums of all time. All the key information is provided, including track listings and a brief judgement on each album. The appendices in this new edition have been expanded and enlarged to include the top 1000 albums across a range of genres, from blues to rap, reggae to indie and jazz to dance. More specialist areas, such as Latin, have been included and the number of jazz albums have been increased.

Reviews and rates the best recordings of 8,900 blues artists in all styles.

All the facts and informed opinion that you need on the artists who made the history of this decade are contained in this single volume, distilled from The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music, universally acclaimed as the world's leading source of reference on rock and pop history.

Remember the 80's? The Virgin Encyclopedia of 80's Music is a complete handbook of information and opinion about the history of the most fragmented and frequently maligned decade in the history of popular music. Here are 1000 entries on the bands, musicians, songwriters, producers and record labels - everyone who had a significant impact on the development of rock and pop music in those ten years, from the New Romantics who brought colour and image to fill the gap left by punk and the new wave, to the stadium acts who provided a launch pad for Live Aid, to the myriad variations of house and techno spawned in the latter half of the Eighties. As well as all the giants of the period the encyclopedia has the range and depth to include artists who flourished briefly and yet were quintessential to the decade. A perfect mix of fact and informed opinion contained in one single volume, distilled from the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, universally acclaimed as the world's leading source of reference on rock and pop history. Informed, infatuating and invaluable.

A Guide to Library Research in Music introduces the process and techniques for researching and writing about music. This informative textbook provides concrete examples of different types of writing, offering a thorough introduction to music literature. It clearly describes various information-searching techniques and library-based organizational systems and introduces the array of music resources available. Pauline Shaw Bayne has cleanly organized the material in three succinct parts, allowing for three independent tracks of study. Part I treats essentials of the research process. It explains starting point resources like library catalogs, dictionaries, and bibliographies; addresses scholarly documentation, the use of style manuals, and basics of copyright; and provides samples of common written research products. Part 2 develops skills and strategies for library and Internet-based research, describing database structures and library catalogs, subject searching in catalogs and journal indexes, keyword searching techniques, related-record searching and citation databases, and the use of experts, the Internet, and thematic catalogs. In Part 3, Bayne describes music uniform titles and select resources that follow the organization of a music library, such as score collections, books and journals in music literature, and music teaching publications. Each chapter concludes with learning exercises to aid the students' concept application and skill development. Appendixes provide short cuts to specific topics in library organizational systems, including Library of Congress Subject Headings and Classification. The concluding bibliography provides a quick overview of music literature and resources, emphasizing electronic and print publications since 2000, but including standard references that all music researchers should know.

This volume is an engaging and exceptional history of the independent rock 'n' roll record industry from its raw regional beginnings in the 1940s with R & B and hillbilly music through its peak in the 1950s and decline in the 1960s. John Broven combines narrative history with extensive oral history material from numerous recording pioneers including Joe Bihari of Modern Records; Marshall Chess of Chess Records; Jerry Wexler, Ahmet Ertegun, and Miriam Bienstock of Atlantic Records; Sam Phillips of Sun Records; Art Rupe of Specialty Records; and many more.

All the facts and informed opinion that you need on the artists who made the history of this decade are contained in this single volume, distilled from The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music, universally acclaimed as the world's leading source of reference on rock and pop history.