In this comprehensive volume, Scott Yanow traces the history of jazz through its recordings. Most live performances from this rich 60-year period are lost forever, but jazz fans can experience a rich legacy of recorded work. Sorting through and colourfully commenting on thousands of CDs and LPs, Yanow points out which performances are the most representative of the great twentieth century artists and which recordings are essential to jazz fans' collections. Along the way he takes readers on a journey through the golden ages of jazz, covering styles such as New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz, Dixieland, hard bop, soul jazz, the avant-garde, and fusion - and showing how these forms diverge, develop, and continue to flourish.

Jazz On Record collects in one handsome hardcover volume the history of recorded jazz through 1976. All the most important available recordings by virtually all of the significant jazz instrumentalists and singers are explored in historical context. The years 1895 to 1976 (which include the tweny-two years that preceded the first jazz recording) are divided into ten chapters that explore each period's groundbreaking events and various mainstream and revival jazz movements. A painstakingly researched guide for jazz fans, scholars, and serious collectors, Jazz On Record also provides an entertaining and inspiring panorama of this great art form's developments.

CONTENTS
1. 1895-1920: The Lost Beginnings
2. 1921-1925: Jazz Sweeps the Nation
3. 1926-1932: From Boom to Bust
4. 1933-1938: Swing's the Thing
5. 1939-1944: The War Years
6. 1945-1949: Bebop Spoken Here
7. 1950-1955: West Coast vs. East Coast
8. 1956-1960: A Time of Giants
9. 1961-1967: The Race Toward Freedom
10. 1968-1976: Fusion and Beyond

SCOTT YANOW has contributed to virtually every leading jazz publication since 1975, written liner notes for over 300 recordings, and perhaps reviewed more jazz recordings than anyone in history! He is the author of Duke Ellington, Trumpet Kings, Classic Jazz, Swing, Bebop and Afro-Cuban Jazz, and the editor of the 3rd edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz.