Jazz Books in the 1990s: An Annotated Bibliography by Janice Leslie Hochstat-Greenberg (2010)

While in the late 1980s the number of publications on jazz rose only slightly, the 1990s saw an enormous increase in books on the subject.
This was fostered by the recognition of the art form jazz by the Academy and the public (better later than never). After almost 100 years of writing on jazz and its culture, in the 1990s it became the subject of intellectual discourse, while originally being conducted by the laymen, the collector, connoisseur, journalist and fan. And with the last overviews of books on jazz being published in the mid 1970s, Janice Greenberg has seen and probably felt the necessity for an updated bibliography.
So this volume is the first in a conceived series on publication of the kind, each one covering a decade. This bibliography covers works “on” jazz and does not include – as may be expected by some readers – jazz fiction or jazz poetry. Being published as #61 of the influential “Studies in Jazz” series by Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies it is only natural that Greenberg, a senior librarian, does quite a good job and offers a comprehensive and easily accessible subdivision of the more than 700 entries ranging from biographies, jazz styles, regions, photography to instruments in more than 40 categories.
The 170+ pages provide a swift access to publications on the topic and will be a worthy addition to any specialized library dealing with jazz or music in general. We look forward to the next volume; then covering the years 2000 to 2010.

Review by Dr. A. Ebert (c) 2012

Janice Leslie Hochstat-Greenberg. Jazz Books in the 1990s: An Annotated Bibliography. Scarecrow Press, 2010, 234 p.