Essential Jazz Books
Richard Cooks Jazz Encyclopedia
Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings
Kind of Blue, The making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece
Bill Evans, How my Heart Sings
Thelonious Monk: Life and Times
Down Beats: The Great Jazz Interviews
Hard Bop Academy: The Sidemen of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers
Coltrane: The Story of a Sound
Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong
Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong
Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins
Bird Lives: The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie Parker
Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography
Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper
Yardbird Suite : A Compendium of the Music and Life of Charlie Parker
From Birdland To Broadway by Bill Crow
I got “Jazz Covers” as a birthday git a few months ago. I already consider it as one of the most important books about art in jazz music ever!
Cool list. You might enjoy “Birdland to Broadway,” too, by Bill Crow (his “Jazz Anecdotes” is already on the list).