At eight volumes, 8,000 pages and more than 18,500 entries, it overwhelms every musical reference work of its kind.
The magnum opus in question, however, isn’t a guide to highbrow opera or European symphonic music but an encyclopedia of genres long marginalized in the halls of academia: pop, jazz, blues, gospel, swing and just about everything else outside the classical tradition.
Moreover, “The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Third Edition” (recently published by Muze Inc.) is just one of several impressive new works giving populist musical genres the serious recognition they long have deserved but rarely received.
“Going way back to when I first conceived this encyclopedia, I felt that pop music was ready for a fat, multivolume work that could stand side by side with `Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians,’ ” says “Popular Music” editor Colin Larkin, reverentially pointing to the 20-volume standard reference on classical music.
“I wanted to put pop, rock and jazz side-by-side with Grove’s, and the dream always was to eventually get it to 20 volumes.
“And so far, things are shaping up pretty well,” adds Larkin, whose first edition of the encyclopedia — published in 1992 — was a comparatively slender four volumes.
“Since then, the encyclopedia has grown every three years by two volumes. So if I live long enough, which I think I just possibly can do, it will get to 20, and then I can die.”
Gallows humor notwithstanding, Larkin and his team of writers in Britain, where he’s based, and elsewhere in Europe and the United States have created a reference work that is not simply long but remarkably open-minded, crisply written and musically reliable.
In what other reference work, after all, can one study the musical impact of comedian Jackie Gleason (who released several “mood music” albums in the ’50s and ’60s), the biography of Chicago gospel pioneer Thomas A. Dorsey (who evolved from writer of raunchy blues songs to composer of sublime church anthems) and the discography of tenor saxophone giant Von Freeman (who gets more attention in this pop music encyclopedia than he does in most jazz reference works)?
“Jazz and blues are the foundation of the encyclopedia, because if it hadn’t been for jazz and blues at the turn of the century, we wouldn’t be hearing The Beatles, the Rolling Stones or any of this stuff,” says Larkin. “So I wanted to make damn sure that we gave jazz and blues that (prominent) position in the encyclopedia.
“Ever since I was a child, I have hated people dismissing pop as not serious music, that whole patronizing attitude,” adds Larkin. “So the idea is to have all these genres included, but without class distinctions.”
Though the price tag of $750 clearly places the encyclopedia out of reach for many music lovers, the sets have sold briskly enough to libraries, Larkin says, to have justified expanding the size of the work with each new edition.
But it’s not only Larkin’s mammoth venture that indicates interest in guides to non-classical music is on the ascent. Several other, less sprawling reference works that fall more comfortably within the budgets of most music lovers underscore the point.
For listeners interested exclusively in jazz and its vast recorded legacy, one new volume towers over the rest: “All Music Guide to Jazz, Third Edition” (Miller Freeman Books, 1,378 pages, $29.95). Each of its 1,700-plus entries — covering every major jazz artist and seemingly every minor one, as well — opens with a pithy biographical portrait.
From there, the entry offers an invaluable discography analyzing and rating individual recordings. Under the Charlie Parker listing, for instance, readers will find analysis of each of more than 50 releases. Equally important, these vignettes (edited by Michael Erlewine, Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra and Scott Yanow) elegantly note the virtues and unflinchingly articulate the flaws of the recordings in question.
With more than 18,000 recordings covered, even connoisseurs will have trouble being without the “All Music Guide to Jazz.”
A smaller, companion volume, “All Music Guide to the Blues” (Miller Freeman Books, 424 pages, $17.95) takes essentially the same approach to a related genre and proves similarly indispensable. Its profiles of more than 500 musicians includes more than 2,600 recordings, smartly edited by Michael Erlewine, Vladimir Bogdanov, Christ Woodstra and Cub Koda.
Though the approach is considerably less scholarly in “MusicHound Jazz: The Essential Album Guide” (Visible Ink, 1,390 pages, $26.95), the book contains valuable biographical information, edited by Steve Holtje and Nancy Ann Lee. Still, considering the lightweight nature of much of the commentary (as in: “Wynton Kelly was a great pianist, but he never seemed to make the turnstiles click”) renders this a distant second to the “All Music Guide to Jazz.”
Finally, anyone who wonders how much those old vinyl LPs collecting dust in the basement are worth can find out in the new “Goldmine Standard Catalog of American Records, 1950-1975,” by Tim Neely (1226 pages, $29.95). Appraising records by everyone from Johnny Mathis to the Rolling Stones, the guidebook could save even savvy collectors from being swindled down at the used record shop.
