More Important Than the Music: A History of Jazz Discography by Bruce D. Epperson (2013)

While most jazz fans will probably own one or maybe two discographies (these books happen to force themselves onto the music collector sooner or later) he may not be aware of the role those volumes played throughout the history of the music. While today they are a useful tool to find one’s way through the jungle of multi-format editions of let’s say Armstrong’s, Gordon’s or Jarrett’s recordings, pressings, test-pressings or bootleg live-recordings, the discography and their forerunners, simple lists of label editions or master’s numbers, once in the early days of jazz had a very strong influence upon the success of individual artists.

The early authors of discographies also by inclusion or obtrusion decided what side was a jazz recording and which was not, which white band could be taken seriously and what label was hot at which time in history. As soon as recorded jazz was mentioned in trade papers and music magazines, lists of this kind were produced. Nevertheless, as a jazz music in the early days of its existence was mostly ignored by lovers of “serious music,” classical music was the one genre that seemed worthy of attention. And consequently reviews of new gramophone recordings were a topic in the British publication “Gramophone.” It was there the very word “discography” was first mentioned in print by editor Compton Mckenzie in 1930. He suggested that it would make sense to compile a list of all recorded music so far to have an overview.

What followed over the years to come were diverse approaches in the western world as to how to compile such overviews for various genres, be it jazz, classical music, folklore or opera. Bruce Epperson’s approach in his book centers on the actually a bit dry and somewhat tedious development of the different approaches to the art of collecting, list-making and compiling of jazz recordings. It is with the help of years of expertise, the inclusion of some interesting facts of jazz history, the linking of bibliophile developments and a very entertaining style of writing that a book on a sober subject such as extensive list-making (in the end, this is what compiling comes to) becomes an absorbing read.

One could easily say More Important Than the Music is devoted to the countless jazz fans who spent decades searching, discussing and collecting 78s, LPs and in the last 20 years CDs and music files to identify, connect and assemble the artistic output of jazzmen as well as a genealogy of jazz music.
Epperson goes into many details while comparing and criticizing those discographies that have or once had the status of a standard book. He concentrates almost entirely on the printed matter, and mentions computer-based archive software and modern electronic library resources only very briefly.

In the course of eight chapters we encounter such prominent authors such as Orin Blackstone, Walter Bruyninckx, R. D. Darrell, Charles Delaunay, Jan Evensmo, Jørgen G. Jepsen, Tom Lord, Albert J. McCarthy, Hugues Panassié, Eric Raben, Michael Ruppli, Brian Rust, Hilton R. Schleman and others who all in their time influenced the very special genre of jazz discography. And who in their time sometimes accused the others/another of simply stealing page after page from their own edition or made fun of the other as certain artists, styles or periods were or were not included within the book of the competitor.

The many editions, reprints and nowadays standardized style of a modern discography took a long time in the making, since the first discographies were complied by fans, laymen, collectors, record shop owners or journalists who all used their very personal way to catalog a certain selection of records. Some editions were meant to be complete surveys, while others would document a style and time period, while other editions should have served as guides. To conduct a study on this topic is also further complicated by the fact that many discographies were published privately in very small numbers and did not produce new editions, others sank into oblivion due to their limited subjects (such as hot jazz) or 78s published only within a certain range of years.

As mentioned before, these early lists were responsible for the success of certain record labels and artists, since the lists were copied, forwarded and sometimes published,  be it to search for a specific rare and ,hence, expensive recording in thrift stores (following suggestions and lists from the famous “little black book”) or be it for the sake of adopting to the personal likes of particular list makers who often were convinced they could tell the difference between real jazz and sweet orchestra music. This was at a time when jazz fan clubs in the US, and GB were en vogue (roughly the 1930s and early 1940s) and record collecting became an obsession for many people; this also had to do with the freshness of both the musical style, and the media that was carrying it.
Epperson quotes the German author (and jazz aficionado) Ernest Borneman who recalls a meeting of a so-called “Rhythm Club” in England where he encountered fanatic jazz fans. For them, the record became “more important than the music.”

The process of changing and altering the way records and artists were finally selected to find their way into sometimes huge volumes of several thousand pages was after all an exciting development. That is, if you are a jazz fan yourself and wonder why certain names are missing in certain discographies.  “But like any literature,” Epperson expresses, “a discography is a work of interpretation, its meaning necessarily defined and refined through the mental lens of its collator, editor or author.” In the book’s bibliography on nine pages pages he lists nothing but jazz discographies.
What we have here is not just a book on collecting, list-making and fandom. It is an almost philosophical approach to the art of researching music and jazz artists and also a conceptualization of how myths, modern folklore and ideas about the past and history are set into motion and how they are preserved or altered.

Review by Dr. A. Ebert © 2015

 

Bruce D. Epperson. More Important Than the Music: A History of Jazz Discography. Chicago University Press, 2013, 304 p.