He was also influenced by the music his African-American friends sang in the cotton fields and later by Hispanic musicians in New Mexico. And he was influenced by “swing” music—an offshoot ...

Each band had its own arranger, who wrote the music. Although there were still some improvised solos in swing music, playing the parts that were written by the arranger was very important.

The producer helped bring about the swing era in the 1930s, but a new set highlights the later jazz recordings he oversaw in ...

The chapter “Our Mainstream Jazz” describes how, by 1970, jazz gained a modernist, formalized sensibility after the influence ...