Amazon.com description: Product Description: The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz constitutes the most definitive volume on the music, history, performers, and venues of jazz. It contains the broadest coverage of the subject of jazz to appear in one work and seeks to give detailed attention to all periods and styles from many countries, making it the largest dictionary of jazz ever published.
Besides traditional jazz topics, there are extensive entries on blues, brass bands, soul music, ragtime, and rock music, as well as profiles on musicians such as Eubie Blake, Bessie Smith, Ray Charles, and Jeff Beck.
Among the numerous categories covered in the volume are:


· Performers from Louis Armstrong to Joe Zawinul, as well as performing groups from the early New Orleans Excelsior Brass Band to the contemporary World Saxophone Quartet


· Jazz terms and topics including pieces on arrangement, form, harmony, and improvisation, as well as articles on jazz in film and jazz singing


· Styles are described from Chicago Jazz, Dixieland, and Boogie Woogie through Cool Jazz, Free Jazz, and Third Stream. Also included are Blues, Ragtime, and Latin music


· Festivals, clubs, and record labels that have had a seminal place in jazz history, such as the Newport and Montreux festivals, and the clubs Birdland and The Five Spot. Clubs are listed internationally by city, including their histories and the musicians who performed there


· Instruments like the saxophone and double bass are covered in detail as well as exotic instruments and special playing techniques such as brass mute effects