Who's Who Of Jazz

by John Chilton

John Chilton's 'Who's Who of Jazz' has established itself as a major jazz reference book on the lives of over a thousand musicians born before 1920. The informative biographies give the essential details of each musician's life and career, and jazz greats jostle with unknowns for the readers attention. This completely revised edition adds much new information to the musical histories of the players, and the biographies of some of the major figures have been rewritten to incorporate recent research.

Genres: Music, Reference, Nonfiction, Jazz, Biography

375 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1970

About the author

John James Chilton (16 July 1932 - 25 February 2016) was a British jazz trumpeter and writer. During the 1960s, he also worked with pop bands, including The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Escorts.

Reviews

[Liam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely limited and not particularly useful, even for 1978. Apparently, Mr. Chilton chose to include only musicians born before 1920, which meant that far too many important post-war jazz musicians were not included in this book. A more apt title would perhaps have been 'Who's Who of Early Jazz', which would have dispensed with any necessity for the somewhat elliptical subtitle. I would not have spent money on this; the only reason I own a copy is that it was gratis...

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basic. Now superfluous with the internet since it's mainly just standard CV bio stuff. Did not survive the great book-shelf purge of 2013.