Music history

Here's a book that has recently made its way from the "someday" section of the bookcase, to the "all over the house/being read by everyone" category:

Jazz and Its History (Masters of Music) by Giuseppe Vigna, Studio Boni-Pieri-Critone (Illustrator)

"Chronicled here are the origins of jazz in turn-of-the-century southern black communities. Also covered are jazz's transition to Broadway in the hands of George Gershwin; jazz at Carnegie Hall in the persons of Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, and Gene Krupa; pioneers of bebop, including Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie; and the great jazz vocalists, including Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, and Sarah Vaughan. This volume takes jazz to the present day, showing the synthesis of jazz and electronic music and citing today's best instrumentalists, including Wyton Marsalis and Don Byron."

I appreciate the fact that they mention Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny on the last page. Good stuff.