Jazz poems inspired by such great jazz artists as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Bill Evans, and Keith Jarrett. Beginning with the origins of jazz in New Orleans, the poems move through the swing and big band era to the bebop movement, the modal jazz period, and the avant garde movement.