Previously sold only as a limited two-volume edition to libraries and institutions, the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz is finally available to jazz enthusiasts everywhere in a complete one-volume format. The most comprehensive jazz work to date.

The scope of this volume is shaped generally by two points of view, one expansive and one restrictive. The editors and contributors have sought to move away from the limited definition of jazz as only an African-American creation and define it more in terms of an international music. Besides traditional jazz topics there are extensive entries on blues, brass bands, soul music, ragtime, and rock music, as well as profiles on musicians such as Eubie Blake, Bessie Smith, Ray Charles and Jeff Beck.

The entries themselves form fascination and informative reading. One learns about the various clubs, such as the Apollo Theatre, which opened in 1913 as a variety theatre where jazz was first performed infrequently. By the late 1930s and early 1940s it had become an international centre for jazz, a place where top musicians played and new talent was born. One reads about performers like Sarah Vaughan, whose early development as a singer can be traced back to Newark's Mt. Zion's Baptist Church choir, followed by an early association with Dizzy Gillespie and later, a five-year contract with Columbia Records in the early 1950s. One encounters the various forms of jazz, like Bossa Nova, a musical style of Brazilian origin blending elements of Samba and Cool Jazz, made popular in the 1960s by guitarist Charlie Byrd through his recording of Jazz Samba with Stan Getz.

The surveys are always limited and discussed in terms of their significant associations with jazz or their connection with certain jazz styles. Other types of music and performers that are not directly associated with jazz are not included here; thus the dictionary also succeeds in establishing useful parameters in its ultimate definition of jazz. A vast and interlocking system of easily followed cross-references allows each reader, at any level of interest and familiarity with jazz, to use the book in different ways for different needs. Among the numerous categories covered in the volume are:

Performers from Louis Armstrong to Joe Zawinul, as well as performing groups from the early New Orleans Excelsior Brass Band to the contemporary World Saxophone Quartet.

Jazz terms and topics including pieces on arrangement, form, harmony, and improvisation, as well as articles on jazz in film and jazz singing.

Styles are described from Chicago Jazz, Dixieland, and Boogie Woogie through Cool Jazz, Free Jazz and Third Stream. Also included are Blues, Ragtime and Latin music.

Festivals, clubs, and record labels that have had a seminal place in jazz history, such as the Newport and Montreux festivals, and the clubs Birdland and The Five Spot. Clubs are listed internationally by city, including their histories and the musicians who performed there.

Instruments like saxophone and double bass are covered in detail as well as exotic instruments and special playing techniques such as brass mute effects.

BARRY KERNFELD has been the editor of the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz since 1984. He has taught jazz history at both Cornell University and Hamilton College. He lives in State College, Pennsylvania.

Contributors include William Russell on New Orleans families and pioneers, Gunther Schuller on Duke Ellington, Frank Driggs on the swing era, Dr. Ranier Lotz on early European players, Alden Ashforth on traditional jazzmen, Chris Sheridan on the members of the Count Basie Orchestra, Thomas Owens on bop players, Brian Priestley, James Lincoln Collier, Danny Barker, John Chilton, Olly Wilson, Lawrence Koch, and Lewis Porter.

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