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Michael Ricci wrote on October 04, 2007 reportPosted on behalf of The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz Author Ira Gitler.
Dear Robert,
I appreciated the fact that AAJ reviewed the Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz's paperback edition and praised the writing of the biographies, but your reviewer obviously did not read my addition to the Publisher's Note page: "The 2007 edition of The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz does not update or, for the most part, correct information in the body of each entry. However, in the headings of many biographies there are corrections and updates pertaining to birth places and dates, death places and dates, and nomenclature."
I can't really blame him for missing it. I think it could at least have been put in boldface. About the only major fact I changed within a biography is in Charlie Mariano's where Charles McPherson is correctly credited for solos on Charles Mingus' Town Hall Concert CD (Blue Note) but there is much new information in the areas noted in the above paragraph. That is all Oxford asked me to do. I admit to missing a few: Ruby Braff's death (perhaps it was unconscious way of denying it); and the perpetuation of Andrew Hill's wrong birth year. But if you didn't catch it when it happened, bassist Harvie Swartz is now Harvie S (no period).
For the edification of your readers, the paperback may be, in the words of reviewer J. Robert Bragonier, "a twin with a different haircut," but it hasn't gone bald.
--Ira Gitler
