Jazz Discography Online (review)

Discography, the science developed in the 1930s by obsessive jazz record collectors, has a long history as a form of amateur scholarship. There has never been an established academic course in discographical methods nor is the study of discography part of the educational requirements for music librarians or even audio archivists. In some ways, it shares a basic philosophy with bibliography (in the descriptive, analytical, and systematic senses) but the details of musical performance and recorded sound introduce added complexity to the subject (Gordon Stevenson, “Discography: Scientific, Analytical, Historical and Systematic,” Library Trends 21, no. 1 [July 1972]: 101–35). A discography, at its best, includes detailed integrated entries that combine the information typically supplied by not only the recording studio log and the record catalog, but also the concert program and the musical score.

Jazz evolved side-by-side with recording technology and, as a performance-oriented music, this art form requires discography to organize and describe its evolution. Tools such as thematic catalogs would be insufficient to distinguish between different performances and recordings of the same material. Moreover, the emphasis that jazz places on individual contributions demands a level of detail that is rarely encountered in other areas. Jazz researchers want to know the identities of the particular soloists and ensemble players, and study is often conducted at the sub-item level, with musical analysis performed on a single soloist’s contribution to a portion of a recorded performance.

Beginning with Hilton Schleman and Charles Delaunay’s works, jazz discography has periodically tried to organize all recorded jazz in a systematic manner. The works of Brian Rust, Jørgen Grunnet Jepsen, Erik Raben, Walter Bruyninckx, and others were surveyed in this journal in a two-part article that is required reading for anyone interested in this subject. Although nearly fifteen years have passed, the observations and conclusions are still valid (Barry Kernfeld & Howard Rye, “Comprehensive Discographies of Jazz, Blues, and Gospel,” Notes 51, no. 2 [December 1994]: 501–47; and Notes 51, no. 3 [March 1995]: 865–91).

The computer age has seen the introduction of jazz discographies on CD-ROM as well as the Internet. Compiled by Tom Lord, The Jazz Discography began as a series of books and is now available electronically. Discography, with its focus on many interlocking bits of information, is a logical candidate for computer database implementation. Lord was the first to apply such a system to a general jazz discography. Beginning his work in 1988, Lord was able to publish books that were cleanly produced and efficient in the use of space on the page. The book project was covered in the aforementioned survey by Kernfeld and Rye and the CD-ROM was reviewed in Notes in 2005 (Eric Charry, “Digital Media Reviews,” Notes 61, no. 3 [March 2005]: 833–37). As of this writing, all formats are still available for purchase, but the online version will be the focus of this review.

There are two choices for online subscription for multiple users: on-site only and remote access. The pricing varies by maximum number of simultaneous users and payment method ($250–$480/year for on-site only and $500–$930/year for remote access). A single user subscription is also available (between $150–$180/year). Size of library or type of institution does not affect the price. This is a Web-based service and no software installation is required. Subscribers log in at the Web site and immediately have access to the full database in its most current form.

Typical use involves searching, and the four main searches available are: leader name, musician name, tune (composition) title, and record label. These make use of separate browsable indexes. A “multi search” lets the user combine up to three musicians and/or three tunes via a Boolean AND operation. A separate “word search” allows rudimentary keyword searching (no Boolean, no stemming, no wildcards) and this can be restricted to...