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Putting together definitive 'all-time best' lists of jazz CDs has never been an easy task. A quick tour of the history of Jazz 100 from its beginnings in early-2002 to the present highlights some of the statistical dilemmas faced in producing the lists ever-increasing numbers of site visitors are currently enjoying.
Jazz 100 was borne of frustration. As a casual listener who had dabbled in jazz for a few years, by about mid-2001 I was well and truly hooked and looking to build the ultimate jazz CD collection. After purchasing a couple of jazz guides and scouring the net for good lists, one thing became eminently clear… the definitive jazz buying guide simply did not exist. My solution was to try and make one.
Before starting I set a couple of ground rules. As a casual listener on a relatively tight budget the last thing I could afford was a lot of expensive boxed sets. What I was after instead was affordable CDs that represented the very best any given artist had to offer. The other key factor was availability, as I saw little point in recommending a recording that was virtually impossible to get a hold of. I decided that anything that had been released on CD could probably be tracked down by the determined collector.
The plan was simple… gather together as many lists as I could find and compile them into the definitive jazz Top 100. Items on rank-ordered lists would receive appropriate weightings while all others would receive a set score. Add 'em up and, hey presto… the definitive jazz list.
After gathering together 20 or so lists I began to realise that jazz critical opinion was somewhat arbitrary. Almost all of the rank-ordered lists contained a significant number of recordings that didn't show up on anyone else's lists. I even found one "Top 50" list that somehow managed to completely overlook what are clearly the top two jazz albums of all-time - Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. Personal opinions are fine, but my intention was to shamelessly pander to the masses. I didn't want to be sent the tired, hungry and poor… just the winners. As a result, I adopted a 'one vote, one value' approach to tallying the numbers.
With so much difference of opinion around, it was also evident that to compile a reasonably accurate list I was going to need a lot of source data. By the time I had tracked down about 30 lists, finding additional info was really starting to get tough. When the site was launched in early-2002 the initial Top 100 was based on about 40 lists of radically varying quality. The shortage of raw data also meant that the list was based on artist tallies, rather than counts of individual titles. If an artist's score was high enough, I assigned a quota to the number of CDs that would represent him/her on the list.
The records chosen to represent any given artist were the ones that appeared most popular and represented significant periods in their careers. This wasn't always easy, especially at the bottom of the list where artist scores were relatively low. To further complicate matters artists like Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker may have had relatively high scores, but in both cases no one collection of their music emerged as a clear favourite. The solution I decided on in such circumstances was to choose a CD that I thought represented their best work… in Parker's case a collection of his Savoy/Dial stuff and for Holiday her best while with Columbia. While much has changed over time, this approach has remained relatively consistent right up to the present day. Where confusion reigns supreme, I try and recommend reasonable alternatives through the relevant record review.
While this early system was admittedly far from perfect, after I had found about 70 lists a fairly clear and stable top 40 began to emerge. The response to the website was good enough to indicate I must be doing something right. Still unhappy with the amount of data at my disposal, sometime in 2003 I hit upon the idea of mining Amazon's 'Listmania' feature for any jazz-related list I could find. I found 137 of them contributed by over 100 people and made them into PDF files so they were easily searchable using the Adobe Acrobat reader. While perhaps somewhat desperate, this radically increased the amount of raw data at my disposal and allowed me to expand the list to a Top 200.
In 2004 I had enough data to introduce the 'New Breed 50' list (now the New Breed 100) and base both lists on individual titles rather than artist tallies. It was at this stage that the lists became purely statistical, with the only guesswork on my part deciding where recommendations for packaged collections should be credited. For example, any collection of Duke Ellington recordings from the Blanton-Webster years got credited to the title on the list that represents that period in his career. Zooming site visitation suggested I was on the right track and people started sending me their own lists.
As a result in April 2005 I introduced the old 'Submit a Top Ten' feature, which by September had turned into a fully-blown online poll with a healthy participation rate. The qualification rules for the New Breed 50 were simplified and the list now includes only contemporary albums released in the last ten years, with all records listed split off from the main poll. In addition, the New Breed list was eventually expanded to a Top 100 thanks to the wealth of 'year-end' critical top tens now available on the net for newer releases. The final touch was the introduction of a separate New Breed online poll.
The lists currently featured at Jazz 100 are based on compiled data from over 300 individual sources, with the two online polls used to collect a wealth of useful supplementary data. Both main lists are regularly updated using the results of the online polls, with site visitors free to nominate any record they wish for inclusion in the polls. All source data has been converted into pure-text PDF files, making them easily searchable when a nomination is received.
While still being an enjoyable hobby site, I am constantly striving to make the lists at Jazz 100 the very best of their type found anywhere in the world. Constructive criticism is always welcome and the best suggestions regularly implemented. Finally, big thanks to all the site visitors that have helped make Jazz 100 the success it is.
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Source Data Summary
Major print-published guides
There have been a number of guides published about jazz CDs, but the two main ones are the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD by Cook & Morton and the All Music Guide to Jazz by various editors. Both are regularly updated and, in the case of AMG, there is a fantastic website with the most up-to-date reviews available. Both use a star rating system, with the highest-ranked CDs qualifying for inclusion in the Jazz 100 survey.
Online lists
There are lots of jazz lists of radically varying quality available on the internet. Several of these are listed on the Jazzlinks page. A word of caution… just about every list you will find (with the exception of a couple of online polls) basically boils down to someone's opinion. As buying guides, these lists are only useful if you happen to have similar tastes to the people who put them together.
Online polls & surveys
There have been surprisingly few online polls of jazz recordings over the years. The All About Jazz website recently ran a Readers' Picks poll using a message board to collect data. The results of an ageing poll from 1996 based on info submitted by Jazz-L subscribers are also still available. In addition, Henrik Franzon at Acclaimed Music recently added jazz recordings into his amazing survey of all-time best albums. Data from all three polls mentioned has been integrated into the Jazz 100 survey.
Amazon Listmania
Online music store Amazon maintains a 'Listmania' feature wherein site visitors and customers can submit lists on just about anything they want. The ones relating to jazz can be pretty hard to find, but the lists are well indexed on Google for those with the patience to try and track them down. Well over 100 of these lists have been integrated into the Jazz 100 survey.
Year-end 'top tens' & charts
It seems every major jazz website or publication now maintains a year-end review of some kind. JazzTimes magazine maintains a yearly Critics Picks section with a collated Top 50 and individual top tens from a lengthy list of critics. Also, the Jazz Journalists Association has started collecting year-end top tens from their members which are published on the net at Jazz House. JazzWeek magazine publishes a year-end Top 100 based on radio airplay which is usually decidedly different to what the critics think. I combine data from all three sources to update the New Breed poll and list early in each new year.
Peter Sykes
15 January 2008
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