It was Detroit’s year, not Boston’s, in the jazz category of the 2013 Association for Recorded Sound Collection awards. I was recently notified that The Boston Jazz Chronicles was awarded one of three Certificates of Merit for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research in Jazz. The two top awards went to books about musicians originally from Detroit. The winner for Best History went to Rob Palmer’s Mr. P.C.: The Life and Music of Paul Chambers (Equinox Publishing), while Best Discography went to Gary Carner’s Pepper Adams’ Joy Road: An Annotated Discography (Scarecrow Press). Congratulations to the winners, and my grateful thanks to the ASRC for continuing to recognize those of us documenting activity that took place outside of New York and L.A.
The university presses usually do quite well when the ASRC hands out its awards, so it is something of a departure for the association to recognize both a history and a discography published by other presses. In fact, it’s the first time since 2006 that a book from a non-university press has captured the best history award.