This book is an overlooked masterpiece of jazz writing. While most authors dealing with jazz reduce it to cliches about personalities and vague notions about improvisation, Hodeir provides a lucid, detailed musical analysis of the major jazz innovators. Especially impressive is his work on Charlie Parker. In a single chapter, Hodeir provides more insight on Parker than all of the existing jazz literature combined. Of course, the book is not without its problems. Hodeir occasionally adopts the language and tone of French academic philosophers (he is quite reminicent of the phenomenologists). This may be off putting to some readers. However, fortunately this intellectual superstructure does not stand in the way of this very lucid, illuminating book. It is extremely unfortunate that this book is out of print.