The Story of Jazz
-Marshall W. Stearns (1970)

The effect of jazz upon American culture and the American character has been all-pervasive. This superlative history is the first and the most renowned systematic outline of the evolution of this unique American musical phenomenon. Stearns begins with the joining of the African Negro’s musical heritage with European forms and the birth of jazz in New Orleans then follows its course through the era of swing and bop to the beginnings of rock in the 50s, vividly depicting the great innovators, and covering such technical elements as the music’s form and structure.

Jazz In Search of Itself (hardcover)
-Larry Kart (2004)

Kart is a genuine critic. He analyzes how a particular player sounds more closely than, it certainly seems, any other jazz writer who, like him, doesn’t use musical notation to illustrate the discussion. In a piece on avant-garde saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, a listener-demanding musician, Kart describes the first 3 minutes of a 23-minute performance so concretely that one could easily check out his accuracy by listening to the same recording. By no means always so thoroughgoing, he still reliably gives readers enough solid information to aurally check up on him, and then to argue with as well as learn from his evaluations. Kart is also historically and sociologically well informed about jazz, enabling him to make cogent assessments of received opinion on historic performers such as Louis Armstrong; to ask informants the right questions or give them room to say arresting things (see the Frank Zappa interview); and to cogently critique whole movements (e.g., jazz revivalism in "The Neo-Con Game"). Ray Olson
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Tales of the Jazz Age (paperback)
-F. Scott Fitzgerald (2007)

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth, these essays present a middle-aged Fitzgerald looking back on the era he came to epitomize. This book of five confessional essays from the 1930s follows Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda from the height of their celebrity as the darlings of the 1920s to years of rapid decline leading to the self-proclaimed "Crack Up" in 1936. The poetics of Fitzgerald’s style are not lost in nonfiction, and these pieces display some of his finest writing. This publication from Boomer Books is specially designed and typeset for comfortable reading.

Growing Up with Jazz: Twenty-Four Musicians Talk about Their Lives and Careers (hardcover)
-W. Royal Stokes (2005)

A jazz writer for three decades, W. Royal Stokes has a special talent for capturing the initial spark that launches a musician’s career. In Growing Up With Jazz, he has interviewed twenty-four instrumentalists and singers who talk candidly about the early influences that started them on the road to jazz and where that road has taken them. From Art Blakey to Claire Daly to Don Byron, here are the compelling stories of two dozen top musicians finding their way in the world of jazz.

Duke Ellington – American Jazz Man (Biography)
(paperback)
-Biographiq (2008)

Duke Ellington – American Jazz Man is the biography of Duke Ellington, an American composer, pianist and band leader who was one of the most influential figures in jazz, if not in all American music. As a composer and a band leader, Ellington’s reputation has increased since his death, with thematic repackagings of his signature music often becoming best-sellers. Ellington called his style and sound "American Music" rather than jazz. One of the twentieth century’s best-known African-American celebrities, Ellington recorded for many American record companies, and appeared in numerous films. Duke Ellington – American Jazz Man is highly recommended for those interested in reading more about this admired music legend.