Have you ever noticed how often you can quickly identify a bad CD?  I've come up with a few guidelines over the past 11 years of reviewing; they are not always applicable, but they work most of the time for me.

1. NUDE ON THE COVER - I'm no prude, but all too often it seems that a nude has been placed on the cover for marketing purposes and to disguise the fact that the music within is empty. Can anyone name a jazz LP/CD recorded after 1960 or so that has a nude cover photo and worthwhile music, too?

2. EXCESSIVE NUMBER OF PHOTOS OF AN ARTIST ALONE - Obviously, this doesn't apply to boxed sets, but you get the idea from seeing some CDs that the artist really aspires to be a professional model and not a musician. Long flowing permed hair, the out-of-date "Don Johnson" hip stubble (instead of a real beard) and credit to the hair stylist in the CD booklet don't help. And the band members or sidemen/sidewomen's photos are nowhere to be found. (Are they not as photogenic or are they even more attractive than the leader, who might not appreciate them getting the attention he feels he merits?)

3. KEYBOARD PROGRAMMING & DRUM MACHINES - This seems to say "I'm too cheap to pay for talented session musicians or my music is so boring that they may fall asleep playing their monotonous parts."

4. PRESENCE OF TURNTABLE PLAYERS OR RAPPERS - The turntable is still viable for playing jazz-at home or at the radio station, just keep it out of the recording studio! There have been a few raps that have been fun (check out "Milt's Rap" on Milt Hinton's Old Man Time and "Hotel De Funk" on the 29th Street Saxophone Quartet's The Real Deal), but those artists imported from the world of rap have nothing of value to contribute to jazz.

5. PLUGS BY WRITERS/REVIEWERS/CRITICS THAT YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF - I'm not complaining about those who write for local or regional publications (I'd like to get more liner note gigs myself!) but listing a little known name on a back cover blurb or at the end of the liner notes without listing a publication or radio station makes it look like the label or artist dragged a crony off the street to pen the praise. And if you do use a published writer, make sure it's one who will talk about the music within and not his/her accomplishments ad nauseum.

6. COVERS OF ROCK & POP HITS - This guideline is likely to promote controversy, but consider how many feeble and misguided attempts to try to attract new listeners to jazz with covers of such songs as "Light My Fire" (The Doors), "What's Goin' On?" (Marvin Gaye), and recent turkeys I've heard like covers of "Time Of The Season" (The Zombies) and "All I Really Wanna Do" (Sheryl Crow). When there's not enough in the way of interesting chord changes or even a good blues riff there to start with, how can you turn it into a viable jazz vehicle?

7. ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER SONGBOOKS - He may be the wealthiest Broadway composer of all time, but do his songs even begin to compare to the wealth of material composed by the geniuses who preceded him (Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, to name just a few)? All of the musicians I've interviewed agree that they don't!

"Vanity" CDs have special problems of their own. Some little known artists wisely choose to book well known musicians to play a track or two on their CDs, then either fail to mention their presence on the outside of the package at all, or even worse, don't bother to see that the guest's name is spelled correctly.

  The most common vanity package features: the unknown artist, with equally obscure sidemen/sidewomen, doing all original material, on a label that's obviously his/her own creation. It's a miracle that many of these releases get even the first hearing, because these combined factors usually cause most reviewers to set them aside for listening to "later." I've been surprised a few times by great music in packages like these, but all too often, the artist has wasted both their time and money sending the CD at all.

Mind you these guidelines are only one reviewer's comments and they are by no means etched in stone. But artists, producers, record labels, and publicists have been forewarned!