Early in Joel Siegel’s review (“Rifference Works,” CityBooks, 10/2) of MusicHound Jazz: The Essential Album Guide and All Music Guide To Jazz, 3rd Edition, he stated that he had “heard the death knell of that era [of resident jazz experts in record shops] when [he] noticed a bin for an artist named Jody Grind.”

True, The Jody Grind is the name of a classic ’60s album by Horace Silver, but it was also the name of not one, but two bands, the more famous of which was a quartet from Atlanta that played lounge-y, jazz-tinged rock and standards in the early ’90s, predating the Cocktail Nation by several years. The Jody Grind enjoyed tremendous critical acclaim in the early ’90s before an auto accident killed two members and permanently halted any further successes for the group.

Perhaps it was slightly presumptuous of the employee shelving discs to categorize the Jody Grind as jazz, but it is even more presumptuous of Mr. Siegel to think said employee was incapable of discerning an album’s title from the artist who created it.

And perhaps “more editorial attention” would have made for a better review. Mr. Siegel’s musical erudition comes into question when he turns his own lapse of memory into support for his argument against record-store employees.

Sometimes, unfortunately, its not just the consumer who requires assistance.

Dupont Circle

via the Internet