Richard Cook

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For the Walt Disney CEO, see Dick Cook.

Richard Cook (born 1957) is a British jazz writer, magazine editor and former record company executive. Cook was born in Kew and has continued to live in West London since then. He is co-author, with Brian Morton, of The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (formerly ...on CD), now in its eighth edition. Richard Cook's Jazz Companion was published in 2005.

A writer on music since the late 1970s, he has been a prominent contributor to the NME, the jazz critic for The Sunday Times and more recently music writer for the New Statesman. Cook was formerly editor of The Wire, when it was a jazz centred periodical, and has edited Jazz Review magazine since its foundation in 1998.

Richard Cook was formerly the UK jazz catalogue manager for PolyGram (1992-97) and has also produced albums by the trumpeter Guy Barker. During his spell at PolyGram, Cook launched the short-lived Redial reissue line of classic British jazz albums. Inj 2002, he was responsible for issuing a 10 CD limited-edition set by the American avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor of 1990 recordings, 2Ts for a Lovely T, which was on the Codanza label.