Buddy Collette has been a key figure in American jazz since the early-1940s. He is particularly noted as a principal participant in the Central Avenue jazz scene of Los Angeles, which rivals Harlem and New Orleans in its influence on the development of jazz. Collette worked cloesely with Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy and went on to join the Chico Hamilton Quintet. He has led his own bands for thirty years as well as writing, arranging and playing on film soundtracks. In this fascinating autobiography, he illuminates the world of the studio musician and charts the developing jazz and social scene on the West Coast from the 1930s, through the Watts upheavals in the 1960s, to the present. He offers moving, first-hand portraits of his friends Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and Chico Hamilton, as well as personal accounts of Frank Sinatra, Paul Robeson and Charlie Parker. The book conclues with a fascinating review of Collette's recent activities as a teacher and performer.

STEVEN ISOARDI is a jazz researcher and interviewer for the University of California (Los Angeles) Oral History Program. He has edited horace Tapscott's memoirs and Central Avenue Sounds.

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