From Bob Hope to Sun Ra, from the jazz age to middle age, with thoughts on everything in between, Francis Davis has been writing about American music and American culture for more than twenty years. His essays have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, and The Village Voice among countless other publications from coast to coast. And now here is a selection of the most important writings of his impressive career - the quintessential Davis on everything from Duke Ellington to Wynton Marsalis, Jack Kerouac to Jerry Seinfeld, jazz to rap. And Davis' writing is as enjoyable as the culture of which he writes. The New York Times Book Review has compared Davis' work to "a well-blown solo." Wire said that Davis "packs in data, asides, and encapsulated opinions with enviable skill." No matter what the subject is, Jazz and its Discontents shows as never before a writer of deep opinions and thoughtful insight - one of the most inventive critics of our times.

CONTENTS:
Only Myself to Blame: Introduction
From In The Moment
An Improviser Prepares (Sonny Rollins)
No Success Like Failure: Ornette Coleman's Permanent Revolution
Leading Lady (Abbey Lincoln)
Anthony Davis's New Music
From Outcats
Surviving Ellington
Ellington's Decade
The Mystery of Herbie Nichols
Sunshine, Too (Sheila Jordan)
She's Susannah McCorkle
Too Late Blues (Bobby Darin)
West Coast Ghost (Frank Morgan)
Black Like Him (Bobby Short)
The Home and the World (Abdullah Ibrahim)
Streams of Consciousness (Ran Blake)
Circles, Whirls, and Eights (Borah Bergman)
From Bebop and Nothingness
Pres and His Discontents (Lester Young)
Apple Pie (Art Blakey)
Real Stuff in Life to Cling To (Tony Bennett)
"Zorn" for "Anger" (John Zorn)
Bagels and Dreadlocks (Don Byron)
Out There (Charles Gayle)
White Anglo-Saxon Pythagorean (Roswell Budd)
Recurring Characters
The Unsure Egoist Is Not Good For Himself
Talking With Miles
Miles Agonistes
Hottentot Potentate
Sun Ra, Himself
The Right Stuff
Born Out of Time
Wyton's Ellington Jones
Bonus Tracks
My Worthy Constituents
Jim Hall Has It Made
Other Folks' Music
Full of Foolish Songs (Guys & Dolls)
Infection (Steven Sondheim)
Black Faces, Black Masks
Mixed Media
At the Movies
Talking Kerouac
Standup Sitcom (Seinfeld)
Onward (Mort Sahl)
Bob Hope, Prisoner of War
America Surrenders
Only In the Movies

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