First published in 1984, and reissued to coincide with the publication of Essential Jazz Records - Volume 2: Modernism to Postmodernism, this collection is a personal, and sometimes controversial, selection by three distinguished jazz critics of the 250 'best' jazz records - mostly LP collections of 78 rpm originals - from the earliest roots of music to the beginnings of the modern jazz era. Each of the chosen discs is placed in its musical context and reviewed in some depth, with full details of personnel, recording dates and locations. Covering virtually all significant musicians of early twentieth-century jazz, both the familiar and the comparatively obscure, no serious collector of jazz will want to be without this book.