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Title: Interesting, but spotty.
Review: Another in the seemingly endless series of "...for Beginners" books that began with a few Marxist tomes but later expanded into other areas. There are some useful bits and pieces here, but overall it's a rather narrow selection that spends too much time on the politics and history and not nearly enough on the music. Mingus is given a number of pages, and rightly so, given his stature as a composer and bassist- but there's not much about his music or why it's worth listening to. But where's Scott LaFaro? He was possibly even more influential than Mingus in redefining moden jazz bass playing, but there's nary a mention of him. There are too many omissions of this sort. Not one of the better books from this group, and not a good choice for someone interested in exploring jazz
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