Walter Bruyninckx

Walter Bruyninckx (born August 27, 1932 ) is a Belgian jazz discographer.

Bruyninckx, who lives in Mechelen , co-founded a jazz club in Mechelen in 1948 and worked as a newspaper journalist and for UNICEF . After a serious car accident in India in 1965, he began to deal seriously with jazz discography during the convalescence phase in 1966. The passionate collector made contact with the discographer Albert McCarthy and with other collectors and from 1968 (initially with an edition of 500) published his "50 years of recorded jazz 1917-1967" on around 8000 pages, which also included blues, gospel, Includes ragtime. From 1978 to 1985 the second edition "60 years of recorded jazz" appeared in 9 volumes (each about 1500 pages), also self-published, followed from 1987 by the third edition "70 years of recorded jazz". In 2007 the first of 4 CDs "90 Years of Recorded Jazz and Blues" was released (which should then correspond to around 20,000 printed pages). He is supported in his work by a larger group of volunteers.

In addition, he published 35 volumes of genre-specific discographies (originally for the Japanese market), including 5 volumes of progressive jazz (Fusion, Free Jazz, Third Stream), 4 volumes of singers, 12 volumes of swing and dance bands, 6 volumes of traditional jazz, 6 volumes of Modern Jazz (Bebop, Hardbop, West Coast), 2 volumes of Modern Jazz Big Bands.

The discography of Bruyninckx is next to that of the Canadian Tom Lord (from 1992) and that of Erik Raben (from 1989, who continues Jörgen Grunnet Jepsen ) the largest current general jazz discography project. Bruyninckx announced that it would stop after the 2007 edition, although it was unclear whether z. B. his son Lucien and Domi Truffandier continue the work.

Web links

• Atkins "Magnificient Obsession - The Discographers" 1982