Aficionados know that any work of jazz history worth its salt is also a work of American history. Racism, protest, demographic shifts, technological intervention, economics: It's all there, and with a better soundtrack. That's why Marc Myers' Why Jazz Happened feels important. In telling the story of musicians' union strikes, or the suburbanization of Los Angeles, or the Civil Rights Movement, the author connects the dots to major stylistic changes in the middle of the 20th century:

—Patrick Jarenwattananon