Satchmo
My Life in New Orleans
by Louis Armstrong

"By far the most revealing document yet on Louis Armstrong's early life and his view of music in the world, Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans is also a pleasure to read."
- Martin Williams

Music is My Mistress
by Duke Ellington

"One of the most colorful 'inside' stories of jazz in its heyday yet published."
- John Barkham Reviews

Lady Sings the Blues
by Billie Holiday

(Penguin USA)

Miles: The Autobiography
by Miles Davis

(Touchstone Books)

Beneath the Underdog
by Charles Mingus

(Vintage Books)

Straight Life
by Art Pepper and Laurie Pepper

"A tough, dizzying, hard, and honest book that will haunt anybody who opens it."
- Down Beat

Good Morning Blues
by Count Basie and Albert Murray

". . . one of the most finished and evocative life histories of an American musician ever written."
- Times Literary Supplement

Satchmo
The Genius of Louis Armstrong
by Gary Giddins

" A treasury worthy of both the genius and the gentle spirit of Armstrong."
-  People

Louis Armstrong:
An Extravagant Life
by Laurence Bergreen

(Broadway Books)

Bird Lives!
The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie Parker
by Ross Russell

"The best biography of any jazz musician that we have . . .."
- Ralph Gleason

Lady Day
The Many Faces of Billie Holiday
by Robert O' Meally

"Billie Holiday deserves a biography in which her musicianship isn't overshadowed by the tragic events of her life. O'Meally has written that book."
- Entertainment Weekly

Space is the Place
The Lives and Times of Sun Ra
by John F. Szwed

"Essential reading for the millennium."
- Village Voice

Remembering Bix
A Memoir of the Jazz Age
by Ralph Berton

New foreword by Nat Hentoff

Chasin' the Trane
The Music and Mystique of John Coltrane
by J.C. Thomas

>"The life of John Coltrane . . . read of him here, and break your recordings of the Golden Oldies and the Top Ten Bullets."
- Stephen Longstreet, Readers Syndicate

Myself When I Am Real:
The Life of Charles Mingus
by Gene Santoro

(Oxford university Press)

The History of Jazz
by Ted Gioia

(Oxford University Press)

Reading Jazz
by Robert Gottlieb

(Vintage Books)

Kind of Blue:
The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece
by Ashley Kahn

"This book is an amazing account of one of the greatest events and recordings of our time. . . This is a must-have."
- Herbie Hancock

A Century of Jazz
From Blues to Bop, Swing to Hip-Hop
by Roy Carr

The first-ever chronicle of the major influence in western music this century.

Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz
by Whitney Balliett

(St. Martin's Press)

The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz
by Ira Gitler and Leonard Feather

(Oxford University Press)

Jazz: A History of America's Music
by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns

(Knopf)

Black Beauty, White Heat
A Pictorial History of Classic Jazz 1920-1950
by Frank Driggs and Harris Lewine

"This is a photographic survey of jazz to end all such surveys. It is the biggest and the best."
- Stanley Dance, JazzTimes

Stomping the Blues
by Albert Murray

"The most eloquent book ever written about African-American music."
- Stanley Crouch, Village Voice