This is taken from the Guardian:

Brian Rust obituary
Broadcaster, writer and the leading jazz discographer of his generation
by Tony Russell
guardian.co.uk
Thursday 31 March 2011 18.21 BST

The American jazz musician Eddie Condon, visiting Britain in 1957 and being questioned about the personnel on one of his records, confessed: "I have trouble remembering who was in the studio last week, let alone on a job in 1932." "Wasn't it 1931?" said the enquiring fan. "If you know what year it was," Condon replied, "you tell me who was on it."

The anecdote has not preserved the inquisitor's name, but perhaps it was the discographer Brian Rust, the leading figure in this discipline of his generation, who has died aged 88.

To the outsider, the meticulous gathering of musical minutiae might look like a form of trainspotting, but accurate discography is a cornerstone of musical history and criticism. Charles Delaunay had preceded Rust in 1936 with his Hot Discography, but Rust's Jazz Records 1897-1931 (later extended to 1942), first published in 1961, went far beyond the Frenchman's work and largely codified the discography of popular music.

Its acknowledged legacy includes other catalogues of American vernacular music, such as Godrich and Dixon's Blues and Gospel Records, 1902-1942 (1964), which Rust himself published, and my own Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921-1942 (2004). But anyone who has compiled a discography in any popular idiom probably owes something to the "sage of Hatch End".

Born in Golders Green, north London, Rust acquired his first gramophone record at the age of five, but his most significant purchase was on 31 March 1936 – it was typical that he should remember the date – when he found in a junk shop a copy of Ostrich Walk by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. A white quintet from New Orleans, the ODJB came to represent much of what he valued in jazz: vitality, accessibility, danceability.

Later he corresponded with, and met, their leader, Nick La Rocca, whose agenda, in the early days of jazz historiography, was to minimise the African-American role in the creation of jazz. Rust never went quite so far in his writings, but his instinctive preference was generally for white jazz, and even that only up to a point. By the early 1930s, he felt, the music was losing its way. He had little time for swing, which, he wrote, "must not be confused with jazz," and none whatsoever for bebop or any new direction from the 40s onwards. The term "mouldy fig", used by modernists about jazz fans who prefer older forms, was a badge Rust wore with pride.

Many obstacles lie in the discographer's path, but Rust persuaded companies to unlock their archives and tirelessly reproduced information on a typewriter – often several times over, as he was generous in sharing material with other researchers. He had a special affection for Victor records, which he part-documented in The Victor Master Book (1969), and chose the name for his son.

He also reviewed jazz records for the Gramophone for more than 20 years, wrote sleeve notes for hundreds of LPs and co-authored, with Rex Harris, Recorded Jazz: A Critical Guide (1958), whose cheerful wrongheadedness (as many would now regard it) anticipated the similar, but much better argued, antimodernism of another jazz lover born in 1922, Philip Larkin.

During the 70s, with jazz, or what he regarded as jazz, sorted out, Rust documented other music from the cylinder and 78rpm disc era, publishing British Dance Bands On Record, The Complete Entertainment Discography (both 1973), The American Dance Band Discography (1975), London Musical Shows On Record (1977), The American Record Label Book (1978), and British Music Hall On Record (1979).

He also became a popular broadcaster. After the second world war – which, as a conscientious objector, he had spent as an auxiliary fire officer – he had reluctantly returned to being a bank clerk (his job since leaving school), but then joined the BBC gramophone library, where he helped to compile record programmes.

From 1973 to 1984 he presented Mardi Gras on the London radio station Capital, spinning nothing but 78s. He sounded, as his friend Chris Ellis recalled, like "a cross between an Oxford don and an overgrown schoolboy, always bubbling with enthusiasm".

In 1970 he left London for Swanage, in Dorset, where, despite poor health, he supervised revisions of his books, worked on further label discographies, and reminisced in My Kind of Jazz (1990). He is survived by his wife, Mary, their daughters, Angela and Pamela, Victor, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Val Wilmer writes: Brian Rust was one of my earliest mentors. I had heard jazz, aged 12, and was fascinated to know more. When I learned about discography, I wrote to Brian, the acknowledged master. That he should have helped a 13-year-old girl amazes me to this day, but he did, answering every query and guiding me towards making a card-index system for my records. I still have those 78rpm shellac discs, protected in thick cardboard sleeves and stickered with orange cloakroom tickets for numbering.

Brian invited me to lunch at Broadcasting House, followed by a tour of the gramophone library. Then for my 16th birthday, he presented me with a shiny Duke Ellington 78 on its original American label. I repaid his faith by uncovering some minor "finds" in junk shops on my way home from school – selling these on to him, of course, to demonstrate what I had learned about the business of record-collecting.

He gave me addresses, too. I wrote to the great New Orleans drummer Baby Dodds and started a lengthy correspondence with Polo Barnes, clarinettist with both King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. Many years later, I stayed with Barnes in New Orleans – something that could never have happened without that initial introduction.

Brian was delighted with my achievements, especially when I became a published writer. Our friendship faltered when my tastes and politics changed – he had some odd ideas about the white contribution to early jazz – but all that was forgotten when I contacted him again a few years ago. Popular belief was that he no longer answered letters. Well, he answered several of mine – and taped me some rare recordings – as helpful and friendly as ever.

• Brian Arthur Lovell Rust, discographer, born 19 March 1922; died 5 January 2011