Richard Cook (1957–2007)

By Chris Parker

The British jazz world is simply a much poorer place without Richard Cook, journalist, encyclopaedia writer, reviewer and compiler (with Brian Morton) of the peerless Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD.

Although he was a much more complex and rounded individual than is suggested by the above description (he was a great collector, for instance, of music-hall memorabilia; a keen racing man etc. etc.), it was as a jazz aficionado and commentator that I knew him, first meeting him when he took over from Anthony Wood as editor of Wire magazine in the mid-1980s, and staying in close touch with him subsequently, my stint of journalism for The Times coinciding with his tenure as jazz supremo at Verve UK, working alongside him on magazines such as BBC Music and, latterly, submitting reviews and features to him as editor of Jazz Review.

He could seem somewhat stern í he certainly held decided views on all manner of jazz topics, from the inclusion of so-called 'world' music in jazz festivals to the paucity of young players in the field of traditional jazz, to name but two of the many subjects across which his conversation would range í but underneath an occasionally slightly forbidding exterior, he had a warm heart, a genuine love and encyclopaedic knowledge of the music, and a wonderfully self-deprecating sense of humour; you could always make him laugh at himself, particularly when he seemed at his most rigorous.

As an editor, someone to whom reviews/features were submitted, he was painstaking, thorough and imbued with two increasingly rare attributes: seriousness and integrity. He was not one to be easily seduced by extra-musical considerations such as ephemeral fashions, show-business flash etc.; he kept his eye unwaveringly on musical matters and never allowed his standards to be compromised.

If you wanted a lengthy, detailed survey of a particular artist, a retrospective, comprehensive look at, say, Bix Beiderbecke or Lester Young, he was your man: he'd listen diligently to everything available and come out with the pithiest judgements imaginable, thought-provoking, stimulating, and just controversial enough to make you go to the music yourself and see if you agreed with him.

A personal reminiscence on this topic: I was best man at his wedding to fellow-music-business-worker Lee Ellen Newman, twenty years ago, and on the eve of his wedding (he was staying with my wife Janet and me for the duration), instead of the customary shenanigans, I attended a jazz gig (for the Independent) and he stayed in and listened to a big pile of Dizzy Gillespie big-band albums, research for an article about same in Wire, which appeared, on the dot, the usual little gem of concision and insight.

Speaking purely personally, I'll miss his acerbic phonecalls: after his characteristic introductory 'Hello, mate', we'd veer off into lengthy discussions of jazz topics of a nature esoteric enough to make the eyes of all but the most obsessed observer glaze over; he'd tease me mercilessly about what he considered ill-judged enthusiasms for, say, Tim Buckley or Joni Mitchell; he'd illustrate his often pungent opinions with copious references to the most obscure albums, and he'd demonstrate just as much knowledge of and enthusiasm for 'unfashionable' figures such as Harry James as for the latest hot, hyped trumpeter í I actually find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that all that painstakingly amassed experience of the whole range of recorded jazz is no longer available to us; he'll be sorely missed, on both a personal and professional level.

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