(Workman Publishing)

www.workman.com/


Wish for a long life. That's the aftereffect of thumbing through and dipping into Tom Moon's 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, the latest addition to the bestselling 1,000... Before You Die series, compiled and written by the former longtime Philadelphia Inquirer critic and accomplished jazz saxophonist.

As Moon notes in his into, "Music critics love to make lists" (this writer being somewhat of an exception, feeling that music is more qualitative than quantitative). And 1,000 Recordings... is indeed a labor of love as well as at the very least a minor triumph of taste and perspective. Spanning the musical globe from opera to punk, it's also an impressive accomplishment by sheer dint of its 900 or so pages.

But even more stunning is not just how often Moon gets it right in his selections - not just with albums but also those songs he singles out - but what he writes about them. Sure, some Lou Reed devotees might quibble that he chooses New York as the ex-Velvet's most significant solo work. But then he notes how "Nobody in rock romanticizes the flinty, unsettled, perpetually on-edge dynamic of New York City the way Lou Reed does," and you almost have to just say, duh!

By its very nature, in spite of its doorstop size and heft, 1,000 Recordings... has what some might feel are oversights, and even grievous ones at that. Fans of post-Beatles pop-rock will wonder why Split Enz, Squeeze, Crowded House and Oasis are nowhere to be found. But then Moon cites John Martyn's Solid Air as "one of the most inventive (and criminally overlooked) recordings of the early ‘70s" and gives it as much ink as Thriller, and most all is forgiven.

Culled from a starting list four times as long, this guide can't avoid leaving some worthy gems by the wayside. But the notes that follow each entry with "catalog choices," "next stop" and "after that" - suggesting former John Mayall/Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green's Man of the World to follow Jimmy Reed's Best Of shows Moon's gift for the less than immediately obvious thread - make it more a key to an overflowing treasure chest than the last word.

Even experts will marvel at how what Moon says about a recording strikes fresh notes on even oft-assessed warhorses. And those who are, say, rock buffs that wish to delve deeper into jazz and the classics will find this tome invaluable. Its cogency and sharp commentary make it ideal to not just keep in one's library but maybe stow atop the toilet tank and dip into in private moments, and it's wise and engaging enough to even read cover to cover. All told, 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die is a brilliant work that can yield rewards for the rest of one's days. ROB PATTERSON