Jazz Books for the Naughty and Nice Artwork

The Buzz: The JJA Podcast

The Jazz Journalists Association is a membership organization founded in 1986. We promote the creation and dissemination of accurate, ethical, informed journalism on all jazz’s genres, and encourage innovative use of media to spur the growth, development and education of audiences for jazz. Public programs include Seeing Jazz Photography Master Classes, The Buzz podcast, celebrations of Jazz Heroes and Jazz Awards, and the website JJANews.org. Theme "Big Vic" composed by John Michaels Featuring Makaya McCraven Geoff Vidaland Mark Dunlap recorded by Doug Hewitt. Podcast edited by Wiz Petta.

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The Buzz: The JJA Podcast

Jazz Books for the Naughty and Nice

November 28, 2025 • The Jazz Journalists Association

This conversation is hosted by JJA Board Member and Chair of our Book Committee, Bob Blumenthal. Bob, along with JJA members Fiona Ross, Todd Jenkins and Katch Cartwright, share some of their book recommendations for you to consider for those on your 2025 holiday nice list. Maybe a few of the naughty people deserve some of these, too.

The JJA’s book committee votes on Book Award nominees everyJanuary and February. The recommendations herein do not reflect any prejudgments by the committee nor should this episode be taken as any preview of what's to come with the awards.

Here is your shopping list of books and music discussed in this episode:

Books Discussed in Detail

Writing Jazz: Conversations with Critics and Biographers by Sasha Feinstein
Guide to Jazz in Japan by Michael Pronko
Focus on Women in Jazz by Guy le Querrec
The Story of Jazz by Marshall Stearns
Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence by André Hodeir
The Life and Writings of Ralph J. Gleason: Dispatches from the Front by Don Armstrong
Going Back to T-Town: The Ernie Fields Territory Big Band by Carmen Fields
Master of the Drums: Gene Krupa and the Music He Gave the World by Elizabeth J. Rosenthal
Cross Rhythms: An Introspective into the Life and Musicality of Joe Chambers by Joe Chambers and Cristian Schorr
Oceans of Time: The Musical Autobiography of Billy Hart by Billy Hart and Ethan Iverson
The Jazz Barn: The Music Inn, the Berkshires, and the Place of Jazz in American Life by John Gennari
Becoming Ella Fitzgerald by Judith Tick
Stomp Off, Let's Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong by Ricky Riccardi
Song for Someone: The Musical Life of Kenny Wheeler by Brian Shaw and Nick Smart
Sax Expat: The Biography of Don Byas by Con Chapman
Black Mystery School Pianists and Other Writings by Matthew Shipp
Run the Song: Writing About Running, About Listening by Ben Ratliff

Books Referenced

Sophisticated Giant by Maxine Gordon (about Dexter Gordon)
Gene Krupa: His Life and Times by Bruce Crowther
Rhythm Man: Chick Webb and the Beat that Changed America by Stephanie Stein Crease
The Swing Era by Gunther Schuller

Albums Referenced

Friday and Saturday Night at the Blackhawk by Miles Davis (includes essay by Ralph J. Gleason)
Dizzy on the French Riviera by Dizzy Gillespie (includes essay by Ralph J. Gleason)

The Jazz Omnibus is on sale now at 25% off. This 600-page anthology features 21st-century photos and writings by JJA members. Details at: bit.ly/jja25

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For more from the Jazz Journalists Association, go to JJANews.org.

Bob Blumenthal: JJA formed a book committee roughly five years ago to make sure we made the membership aware of the vast and diverse number of books about jazz that were coming out regularly and that often went under the radar. We formed the committee to meet every month to track the publication of new books, to read these new books, and share our opinions with each other so that after the year ends, we could get together and vote on nominations. The nominations occur in two categories. The first is biographies and autobiographies. The second looks at other books that we refer to as history, criticism, and culture. These are not straight biographies of individuals, but broader examinations of jazz from a variety of perspectives. We have seven members on our committee, and in addition to myself, I'm going to be joined by three other members today. Our first committee member is Fiona Ross. She's a vocalist, a pianist, and a composer, as well as being a journalist. Her most recent, and it is very recently released, album is called Moments in My Notebook. She is, among other things, the founder of Women in Jazz Media. Fiona, great to see you always, and I know you've got some books.

Fiona Ross: Thank you for the intro. There's a whole range of books that I'm really excited about, a few that I'd love to mention today. One I have to say, because you won't mention it, has got you in it, Bob. This is Writing Jazz: Conversations with Critics and Biographers by Sasha Feinstein. I loved this book. It's a brilliant collection of 14 different writers, including Maxine Gordon, Willard Jenkins, obviously fellow JJA members, and yourself. Although some of these were already published online, these are interviews that I believe happened quite some time ago. It's such a fantastic collection of outstanding journalists. What I love about this is it starts off with examples of people's work. For example, in the Maxine Gordon interview, there are snippets of her book that she wrote, obviously Sophisticated Giant about Dexter Gordon. Each of the different interviews starts off with examples of that person's work and then a really interesting discussion, but very much focused on writing, on critics. You were asked, for example, about particular writers and who you would recommend, who you wouldn't recommend, and styles of writing. I don't think there are many books out there that really focus on journalism like this one. As I say, the whole range of writers is impressive. If I take Willard, for example, in his interview, there are sections of the African rhythms, the notes that he wrote for the reissue of Dizzy's Big Four. And then also, particularly importantly, specifically in America at the current time, what's your take? Is racism still an issue in jazz? I love that book. I highly recommend it.

Another one I thought about is the Guide to Jazz in Japan. I've not been to Japan. I found this an absolute go-to guide. This is by Michael Pronko. It lists all of the different jazz venues from small cafes to big venues. It gives you the address, how close it is to the local transport, how busy it gets, if it's mainstream or if it's around the corner. It gives you some really interesting behind-the-scenes information. It gives you a guide on ticket prices, so it's got really practical information, but then it also talks about the history of those different places and why they value jazz and the type of jazz. It'll say, well, this one has jazz every night. Or they'll say they have traditional jazz only on Thursdays, or this is a music venue and only jazz. It's incredibly useful, the detail about the type of music that you hear. But what I found fascinating also was the types of audience. He will talk about, look, when you go to this venue, you go to listen. If you are talking while someone's playing, someone will come up to you and tell you off. This will actually happen. There are actually quite a few places that he mentions. He's like, you don't go there to talk. This one is slightly more relaxed, and if there's some light conversation, you won't get told off. It also talks even about the refreshments. It will talk about whiskey, obviously a huge beverage in Japan in particular. Some venues only serve water and whiskey. Others have a more interesting food selection. I have to say, as a Scot, I can't really discuss whiskey, Japanese whiskey.

Bob: Understood.

Fiona: It really goes into that sort of detail: ticket price, the type of audience, what's on the menu. But then what's also nice is he then lists different instruments, and he goes into pianists, trombones, trumpets. He'll break down and give you a range of recommended instrumentalists that, most of which I hadn't heard of. Then also importantly, it talks about the history of jazz in Japan and the impact of war, some of the issues that have come up, and the impact that has on jazz. It is so much more than just a guide to jazz in Japan. I loved this book, and I'm genuinely desperate to go to Japan now. This is a new book, so it's fairly up to date, but I will absolutely be taking this with me when I go. Also, I think what's interesting is it comes from his experience initially as a tourist. You can see when I was a tourist, this is how I felt about it. But now having lived there for, and forgive me, I can't remember how many years he said, but he's lived there for quite some time. He does that comparison, saying, well, look, the touristy people go here. This is the experience you will have. But as someone who's lived here for many years, this is how I now perceive it.

Now I'm not a photographer, but I do spend a lot of time working with photographers, and this book, I think it was last year, is called Focus on Women in Jazz by Guy le Querrec. It's a stunning book of photography, mainly photos that he has taken in Luxembourg, which is where he's based. What I found interesting about this is because of course I said to him, well, what? Why are you focusing on women? You know what? Why did you decide to do this? His wife initially said, do you think you have enough photos of women to do a book that focuses on women? Initially Guy thought he didn't. He's like, oh, actually, I'm pretty sure most of the photos I take are of men. Then he went and explored his archive, and this book is quite a few years of his work photographing, as I say, mainly in Luxembourg. But what I think is particularly nice is the range of artists. You've got some legends in there. Melba Liston, the fantastic trombonist, who quite often is not shouted about as much as she should have been, she's in this book. But then you also have newer artists, and you have some artists that are from Luxembourg, but also main stage artists: Carla Bley, Terri Lyne Carrington, Geri Allen. All the photos are black and white. It starts off with a gorgeous Alice Coltrane quote, which I won't read now, but it's a beautiful gift actually. It is a beautiful, stunning hardback book.

Bob: Well listen, all terrific suggestions. Thanks a lot. I wanted to talk about older jazz writing. When we met, the committee met and talked about recommending books, one of our members who unfortunately could not be here today, Eugene Holley, said, well, you know, we should talk about some older books. In fact, what about The Story of Jazz by Marshall Stearns? I thought this was a great suggestion. It's a book that can still be found fairly easily online, and the book is called The Story of Jazz. The author is Marshall Stearns. It was published in 1956, and it has been available for a long time. The copy I have is a 1958 paperback that originally sold for 95 cents. Marshall Stearns, at the time he wrote the book, was an associate professor of English literature at Hunter College, but in the jazz world, he was known for creating the Institute of Jazz Studies, which was originally a private organization and then became part of Rutgers University, where it continues to thrive after several decades of leadership by the late Dan Morgenstern, who was a valued member of the JJA. This book, I went back and I recalled that this was one of the books that I really relied on to learn about jazz. It's interesting in any book that's going to look historically to say, well, when was it written? It was written at a very interesting time in 1956. Nightclubs had established themselves as the alternative to dance halls where most people used to hear jazz. The 12-inch LP had just been introduced, which changed the way the music was recorded. That's when Stearns wrote, and that gave him, to my mind, the advantage to really go deeply into some issues that are important if you want to understand the music from the roots forward. It still has some of the best writing I'm aware of on the African sources of music, on the effect of Africans in the West Indies, and the styles that were concurrently being created, let's say, in New Orleans, Havana, and in the Dominican Republic. Great sections on New Orleans when you could still explore not only some of the original creators, but those who had memories of the original creators who were no longer around. The book includes a beautiful section on jazz and the role of the Negro, which at the time was a very insightful discussion. He talks about the influences of European music and abstract composition, Afro-Caribbean rhythmic music, and these were the poles that were pulling on the contemporary musician at the time.

Another book that I don't want to discuss in any detail, André Hodeir's Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence, was written two years earlier, and it was also asking the question, well, what is jazz? What's the essential component or components that make music jazz music? I can't recommend that highly enough. Don Armstrong wrote a book called The Life and Writings of Ralph J. Gleason: Dispatches from the Front, and Ralph J. Gleason, for those who might not know, was a very important and influential music critic, really from the forties when he was a student in New York City through the seventies when he had moved to the West Coast and established himself as a critic in San Francisco. When I was learning about jazz in the early 1960s, so much of the information I got was from album liner notes, and there were always three or four names I would find who were responsible for a lot of what I was reading. There was Nat Hentoff, Leonard Feather, Ira Gitler, and Ralph J. Gleason, and a couple of things set Gleason apart. Gleason was based on the West Coast. The others, at least until 1960, were all on the East Coast. At that point, Leonard Feather moved, or maybe 59, from New York to LA. Gleason was based in San Francisco, the Bay Area, very distinct cultural environment from Los Angeles. Of those four, as the music in the 1960s into the 1970s evolved in directions toward popular music, electric popular music, rock and roll, Gleason was the one to embrace this change, whereas the others either opposed it or made some kind of accommodation without fully championing it. Gleason was the guy who had been writing about Bob Dylan and who had met the Beatles when they came to New York and who embraced the flower power culture in the Bay Area and the bands that were coming out of there. He really had a unique perspective. He also, I thought, was the best of the group in the portrait essays he would write. If people have access to Friday and Saturday Night at the Blackhawk by Miles Davis or Dizzy on the French Riviera by Dizzy Gillespie, the essays that Gleason wrote about Miles and Dizzy are perfect encapsulations of these people, and he knew these people, which made it even more insightful. He's always been a favorite author of mine, and I thought that Don Armstrong did an excellent job in really tracing his development and the kind of personality that he was because he did become something of a hippie himself as he transformed himself. I would also recommend that book if you're interested in a historic, great jazz journalist.

Todd, you live in San Bernardino, California?

Todd Jenkins: Correct.

Bob: You've written books on free jazz and Charles Mingus. What might you suggest as some holiday reading?

Todd: Well, the first book I'd like to talk about is Going Back to T-Town: The Ernie Fields Territory Big Band. It was written by Ernie's daughter, Carmen Fields. The book was initially inspired by a documentary episode that Carmen wrote in 1993 for American Experience on PBS. It focused on Greenwood, Oklahoma, known as Black Wall Street for its prosperous African American community. Greenwood was burned to the ground in a race riot in 1921, and at that time, Ernie Fields was a 17-year-old trombone player growing up in Taft, Oklahoma. Going Back to T-Town discusses the hopes and difficulties faced by talented musicians who competed fiercely with other regional bands, facing endless racism and financial struggles. Sidemen came and went regularly. Some, like Yusef Lateef, Teddy Edwards, and Booker Ervin, went on to a good measure of success, while others called it quits and found more reliable lines of work to provide for their families. Fields relocated to Los Angeles, rebuilt the band with musicians old and new, and finally landed a major hit in 1959, a quarter century after his career began, with an R&B version of Glenn Miller's "In the Mood." The book presents Ernie Fields's life and musical journey in good depth, unveiling a lesser-known side of the American jazz scene that had a more subtle but recognizable impact on the music's development. About a third of the book is devoted to biographies of many musicians and vocalists that worked with Fields over the course of four decades, as well as a thorough bibliography and discography. It also holds a wealth of historic photographs. Most importantly, it presents the life of a man devoted not only to his art but to his family and friends, extending regular kindness to his fellow musicians. His character is revealed in his daughter's own reminiscences and in interviews with other family members and performers who knew and loved the man. All in all, I found it a deeply interesting read.

Bob: And it also expands our notion of territory bands because you tend to think of Kansas City and not realize that Oklahoma and Texas, there's a lot of territories.

Todd: He was having to compete with Bennie Moten and a bunch of other bands in the area, all fighting for the same personnel, who could offer the best contract.

Bob: Do you have a newer one?

Todd: Yes. I'd like to talk about Master of the Drums: Gene Krupa and the Music He Gave the World, written by Elizabeth J. Rosenthal, published in 2025 by Citadel Press. This book is the polar opposite of the Fields biography. It gives us a comprehensive, fact-packed look at one of the most popular and charismatic performers of his generation. Krupa was a rock star before such things existed. He had to dodge fans who screamed for autographs and tried to snatch his clothes off his body as he ran to the bus after concerts. He created the concept of the drum solo, grimacing and contorting as he pounded out loud, vigorous rhythms with the band's encouragement behind him. He first gained global notoriety thanks to Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert in 1938. He had already made waves years before in the Chicago jazz scene centered around Eddie Condon, and many of those musicians became lifetime friends. He was a key figure in the integration of jazz ensembles, working with skilled Black players like Lionel Hampton and Roy Eldridge and defending them from the bigots who kept them out of certain hotels and clubs. Krupa studied African and Latin rhythmic concepts and integrated them into his own band. He also had a direct hand in the evolution of the modern drum kit, which I found especially interesting. He actually led to the development of tunable tom-toms and thinner cymbals that had different resonance on different parts of the cymbal. The book touches upon his tumultuous relationship with Benny Goodman, the inspiration he took from fellow drummers like Baby Dodds and Dave Tough, and the cannabis conviction that could have ended his career in 1943. Rosenthal's research goes into much more depth than Bruce Crowther's 1990 biography, and it presents a fuller view of the man's complexity and talents. Overall, I found this very worthwhile, especially as the child of a swing band drummer. My dad played in Atlanta in the 1970s, so I literally grew up around the music of Gene Krupa and all of his associates. The work he did with Anita O'Day and Roy Eldridge is still just legendary to this day. It was a brilliant group, again, very highly integrated, and that offended some people and made a lot of other people very happy and hopeful about the future of the scene.

Bob: Good year for books about drummers. Not only is there the book about Krupa, but Joe Chambers collaborated with Cristian Schorr on a biography, Cross Rhythms: An Introspective into the Life and Musicality of Joe Chambers. And Billy Hart collaborated with Ethan Iverson on a book, Oceans of Time: The Musical Autobiography of Billy Hart. I was really taken with the Hart book because he really goes all the way back to give you a feeling of what it meant to grow up as a young, ambitious musician in the forties and fifties and the local scene around Baltimore where he grew up in the DC area, and the influences a musician would have beyond the national names we all know about, to a career that's really been everywhere from Jimmy Smith to, I want to say Wadada Leo Smith, though I don't know, I'm not sure he played with Wadada, but it's definitely gotten into that realm of the music and is still productive to this day, as is Joe Chambers. In fact, I recently received an album where for the first time, Billy Hart plays with Andrew Cyrille, who is the subject of a biography that's coming out next year. If you're a drummer and you're interested in reading about the greats, you've got books about Krupa, Chambers, and Hart already available, Cyrille about to come, Chick Webb, the book that came out either a year or two ago. Great time for books about drummers.

We're going to go to Katch Cartwright, who is based in San Antonio, who is an ethnomusicologist, a flutist, with a focus on Brazilian jazz, who also hosts a radio show, Caminos de Jazz on KRTU in San Antonio, and who has taken to writing more reviews of late, I believe. Katch is the newest member of our committee, and we welcome her to the podcast. I'm curious to hear her take on some books to read over the holiday season.

Katch Cartwright: I would like to recommend The Jazz Barn: The Music Inn, the Berkshires, and the Place of Jazz in American Life by John Gennari. It's great for jazz fans who want to get a bigger idea of the 1950s in a particular location. This is a book about what happened in the 1950s in a barn, ice house, and greenhouse. The Jazz Barn is filled with photographs by Clemens Kalischer, a German American Holocaust survivor who captured the grain of everyday life there, images of people engaged in philosophical dialogue, musical analysis, listening to and discussing jazz, singing in classrooms, practicing in the fields and woods. These are not glamorous publicity photos. They demonstrate that the history of the place and the music is, to quote, not just one of those dazzling sounds, but also of imagery replete with beauty, cultural meaning, and social importance. Gennari describes his research this way: "I'm really interested in how Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Anita O'Day, June Christy, and Chris Connor sang on the stage of the Music Barn. But I'm also interested in how people traveled to the concert, whether anything important happened offstage before and after the concerts, what was written about the concerts for the next day's Berkshire Eagle, and how the performances related to what was said by the previous week's guest lecturer." Even fans of jazz who know nothing about the Jazz Barn or the Music Inn or the Lenox School of Jazz or the jazz roundtables are likely to have gotten wind of the place subliminally through tunes like Randy Weston's "Berkshire Blues," John Lewis's "Fugue for Music Inn," Dizzy Gillespie's "Wheatleigh Hall," Jimmy Giuffre's "Blues in the Barn," or Ran Blake's "Blues for Wheatleigh." And they'll recognize alumni of the short-lived but influential jazz school, 1957 to 1960, including Arif Mardin, Steve Kuhn, Bob Dorough, David Baker, Don Ellis, and Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, who attended the school under Atlantic Records scholarships of Nesuhi Ertegun. New Yorkers Philip and Stephanie Barber bought the service area of a formerly opulent 250-acre, late 19th century estate, Wheatleigh, situated walking distance from Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony. The author's perspective is that of a local who, like his neighbors, is proud of his hometown in the Berkshires, a place of beauty and the birthplace of such cultural icons as Herman Melville and W. E. B. Du Bois. For many people in the Berkshires, Gennari writes, there would be no musician more strongly associated with Music Inn than Randy Weston. He was not on faculty at the school, nor did he concertize there during the time it was in operation. Nonetheless, his association with Music Inn, first as a breakfast cook, then as an auditor of historic jazz roundtables, and finally as a major musician and culture worker who triangulated Black Brooklyn, White Lenox, and Northern Africa, stands as one of the most important legacies of the institution. The book provides ample evidence to support the author's assertion that no other bricks-and-mortar institution, no other physical space, better registered the pulsing changes in jazz music than Music Inn. It was there, off Hawthorne Street in Lenox, where the jazz mainstream and the jazz tradition crystallized not just as concepts or ideas but as courses of study and methods of sonic practice. In 1959, it was there, more sharply and robustly than anywhere else, where the shape of jazz to come was meditated on, mapped out, argued over, imagined, and felt.

Bob: I haven't seen this book yet. I'm looking forward to it because I have a lot of respect for John Gennari. He's an academic who does not write like an academic, so he's a very readable critic with a great foundation of knowledge, and it's a fascinating subject. As Katch mentioned, the proximity to Tanglewood is what makes people think of the Lenox area as a music area in the summer, and it was the site of this amazing school that really had an impact. It was a fascinating place, and John's a great writer, so that's a good recommendation. What else have you got for us?

Katch: I have an older one, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald by Judith Tick, which is W. W. Norton. That was a 2024 release. In his 859-page history of the Swing Era in 1989, Gunther Schuller skipped past Ella Fitzgerald, and in 2011, when Judith Tick asked him about the omission, he responded that there wasn't room to cover two singers, and he had chosen Billie Holiday. Becoming Ella Fitzgerald fills that hole. As Tick put it, "This void demanded my attention as a music scholar and as a feminist. I felt personally challenged to fill it, to look at the ways patterns of gender bias in earlier American music were echoed in the post-1950s jazz. This has enabled me to question the reductive oppositions between popular singing and jazz singing, between Billie Holiday and Ella, between art and entertainment." Of course, there are other biographies of Fitzgerald, but Becoming Ella Fitzgerald is the first to profit from digital access to a huge variety and number of resources previously hidden in special collections and archives scattered across the US and elsewhere. Tick took full advantage of these materials in two decades of research and writing, focusing, as she said, on three neglected aspects of her life and work: the early part of Fitzgerald's career, her private life, and ways in which the fabric of her improvisations link musical practice with lived experience. Digging into the music, getting behind the public persona, filling gaps, and correcting misconceptions to present a fuller picture of the life and work of Queen Ella.

Bob: I think there had been a previous biography of Fitzgerald, but this one is much more complete and more thoroughly researched. Thank you, Katch, for that. I wanted to mention a few books quickly because there have been so many interesting books. I just want to point out a few more. In the biography category, I've got two suggestions. One is Ricky Riccardi's Stomp Off, Let's Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong, which is the third of his trio of Armstrong books. He's kind of the Robert Caro of Louis Armstrong. He started with the fifties and sixties, then wrote a book about the swing era when Armstrong led a big band, and now he deals with his early years and his childhood in New Orleans, his move to Chicago and then New York, and his establishment as the voice of jazz.

Song for Someone: The Musical Life of Kenny Wheeler by Brian Shaw and Nick Smart. This is a book that I'm currently in the midst of reading. It's one of those books that sends you back to the recordings and makes you listen again, and you think of Kenny Wheeler. Oh, I remember hearing him with Anthony Braxton, or I remember hearing him with Dave Holland, but he made a lot of great music on his own. A lot of great compositions for larger ensembles that, if you are just relying on where he toured in the United States, you don't have a complete picture of the man's music.

To move to saxophones, Con Chapman's book, Sax Expat: The Biography of Don Byas, is another very valuable book. Byas is the forgotten man in the lineage of the tenor saxophone. He suffered from being at his peak in a period when records weren't being produced because of the war and union strikes. Con Chapman, who's done excellent work on Johnny Hodges's life and on the Kansas City jazz tradition, is great at researching and great at telling life stories and sorting it all out.

Another book, which sounds like it's an autobiography, but it really isn't, is Matthew Shipp's Black Mystery School Pianists and Other Writings. Matt Shipp, as you probably know, is one of the leading pianists in jazz and creative music of the last 35 years, 40 years, and known to a lot of jazz fans for his two decades as a member of David S. Ware's Quartet. This is a collection of his writings about jazz and really about other musicians. The Black Mystery School Pianists, for instance, is his attempt to define a school of pianists who are not necessarily avant-garde and are not necessarily modern but are in a lineage that really starts with Thelonious Monk. Matt is as talented a writer as a pianist, and it's a fascinating collection of his essays, though not an autobiography.

Another one is Ben Ratliff's book, Run the Song: Writing About Running, About Listening. Many of you probably know Ben's writing. Ben's a great writer. He's got interest in jazz, but he has interest in all kinds of music. He's also a runner, and it's a book about how he runs and what he listens to and the interaction of the two. It had particular interest to me because in the days when I was a runner, music was a critical part of how I ran, the way it is with Ben. I had my running route where I didn't have to worry about traffic and could really focus on what I was listening to while I ran, so I didn't have to focus on the fact that I was running. I was fascinated by the book, even though Ben's taste and mine don't overlap that much in the music he listens to and the music I listen to. Someone who's a runner who might like jazz but like other music might find the Ratliff book fascinating and a good entree into a deeper appreciation of the music that the JJA cares about.

I want to thank Fiona. I want to thank Todd. I want to thank Katch. We hope we have encouraged you to go out and find some good books about jazz to either give as gifts or to read yourself. Too many books to read, which is why we have seven members of the committee, each encouraging the other six to look at books they might not have come across yet. Thanks for the extra Saturday afternoon. See everybody next month.

Katch: You too.