The history of jazz and its sociocultural battles within U.S. culture are portrayed in this spectacular collection of documents, photos, newspaper clippings, concert announcements, album covers, advertisements, jazz magazines, and other "ephemera" of the last 100 years or so. The book's extraordinary photos and well-researched narrative give a fond but unsentimental portrait of jazz history; of brilliant music played against a backdrop of hardship and white expropriation.

The book is a delight: A museum of rare and evocative materials from turn of the century Storyville, New Orleans (the oldest picture is of jazz legend Buddy Bolden's Band circa 1894) up to around 1990 (with posters of recent movies like "Bird" and "Round Midnight"); however, the bulk of the collection is from the early New Orleans days through bebop. We see the very young Louis Armstrong in the "Colored Waif's Home" brass band, and later with his "Hot Five" group in 1925, and then a racist ad for Armstrong's OKEH recording of "St. James Infirmary." Numerous pictures of jazz in Europe, featuring two Django Reinhardt album covers, a "Jazz Illustrated" article about a 1949 Paris concert with Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Tad Dameron, and "Hot Lips" page (all of whom were subject at the time to a British protectionist ban on foreign musicians), and numerous memorabilia of British jazz bands. (There's a disproportionate amount of material on English jazz; the book was originally published in London).

Bunk Johnson is featured on the cover of "The Jazz Record," hailed as a "the last important link between the present [the 1940's] and the fabulous Buddy Bolden . . ." Superb pictures (but too few) from the bebop and post-bebop periods, including the young Dizzy Gillespie, a close-up of Monk, and album covers for Bird. There's also a ticket from the "Jazz at the Philharmonic" series and an English "programme" for an Ellington concert, but only a two page section on "Women in Jazz," featuring photos and albums of vocalists Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald.

The book has its problems. As mentioned previously, there is far too much emphasis on British jazz, the books devotes almost an equal number of pages to "Jazz Consolidates in Britain" as it does to the Swing Era. The boppers, the Cotton Club, Miles, etc. are also not well-represented; this is not a history of jazz. But, overall, this is an eye-catching assortment of "printed ephemera and collectibles." With a special section on "jazz in print" (a guide to jazz magazines), jazz-related literature, ephemera collections (e.g., the Louisiana State Museum), a bibliography, and index. Though neither thorough nor balanced, this is an exciting book, and is a valuable resource for students of jazz and culture. Highly recommended, and definitely worth looking for!!