This book is one of the most improtant works ever written on Jazz music. It is a virtual manifesto agains the ghettoization and the racist pigeonholing thast has afflicted the public's appreciation of this great music since its beginnings as ragtime a century ago. It exposes the lies and misconceptions that have surrounded this music, the attempts-made anew, it seems, each decade-to deny that jazz is one of the leading artistic forces of our time...