Jazz/Not Jazz

What is jazz? What is gained--and what is lost--when various communities close ranks around a particular definition of this quintessentially American music? Jazz/Not Jazzexplores some of the musicians, concepts, places, and practices which, while deeply connected to established jazz institutions and aesthetics, have rarely appeared in traditional histories of the form. David Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett, and Daniel Goldmark have assembled a stellar group of writers to look beyond the canon of acknowledged jazz greats and address some of the big questions facing jazz today. By focusing their attention beyond the hypothetical jazz hall of fame, the authors ask what we can learn about this music by looking more closely at its margins. More than just a history of jazz and its performers, this collections seeks out those people and pieces missing from traditional narratives to explore what they can tell us about the way jazz has been defined and its history has been told.