"The Making of Jazz" by James Lincoln Collier

This book I found at a quirky record store. It was a great store, with a small section with music books.

It spans the origins of jazz to about the 70s (but it was published in 1978 so it’s not up to the present and can be a little outdated at times). Solid summary of everything happening though.

Throughout the narrative, there are small bios of the major figures and breakdowns of key records They sometimes doesn’t explain everything, and you need to look some stuff up on your own (example: mentions Cannonball Adderly a few times but never says explicitly who he is…) It can also be simplistic sometimes, but there’s a lot of info here so he can’t go in depth on everything.

His music theory could be brushed up a little, for example he fixates on the “blue third” and I’m not sure he fully understands it, and heavily expresses his own opinions about the players instead of remaining more unbiased.

Overall, a pretty good history and summary of a lot of cultural and musical history! Even if it is a little old.