'The ultimate in art is self-expression, not escape.'-Duke Ellington In this fascinating portrait of one of America's greatest musical legends, longtime friend and jazz historian Stanley Dance recounts the life of the incomparable Duk...

The first autobiography of a jazz musician, Louis Armstrong's Swing That Music is a milestone in jazz literature. Armstrong wrote most of the biographical material, which is of a different nature and scope than that of his other, late...

Lady Sings the Blues is the fiercely honest, no-holds-barred autobiography of Billie Holiday, the legendary jazz, swing, and standards singing sensation. Taking the reader on a fast-moving journey from Holiday's rough-and-tumble Balti...

A wild, lyrical, and anguished autobiography, in which Charles Mingus pays short shrift to the facts but plunges to the very bottom of his psyche, coming up for air only when it pleases him. He takes the reader through his childhood i...

A legend on both the clarinet and the soprano saxophone, one of the most brilliant exponents of New Orleans jazz, Sidney Bechet (1897–1959) played with such fellow jazz legends as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and...

This work on Charlie 'Bird' Parker offers a picture of not only of the saxophonist-composer as an artist and as a human being, but also of zeitgeist and the musical/social setting that produced him. It shows his complex personality; h...

Louis Armstrong is widely known as the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century. He was a phenomenally gifted and imaginative artist, and an entertainer so irresistibly magnetic that he knocked the Beatles off the top of the ...

A gorgeous, inimitable singer and songwriter, Nina Simone (1933-2003) changed the face of both music and race relations in America. She struck a chord with bluesy jazz ballads like 'Put a Little Sugar in My Bowl' and powerful protest ...

Nominated for a National Book Critics Circle AwardBilly Strayhorn (1915-67) was one of the greatest composers in the history of American music, the creator of a body of work that includes such standards as 'Take the 'A' Train.' Yet a...

Hampton Hawes [1928–1977] was one of jazz's greatest pianists. Among his peers from California the self-taught Hawes was second only to Oscar Peterson. At the time of his celebration as New Star of the Year by downbeat magazine (195...

The voice of Jimmy Scott is one of the world's most mesmerizing instruments, transcending gender and age. But its beauty is inextricably entwined with pain, hardship, and tragedy-yet Scott's resilience made his life a story of triumph...