Mervyn Cooke is Professor of Music at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of Jazz, The Chronicle of Jazz, and Britten and the Far East; co-author of Benjamin Britten: Billy Budd; editor of The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten (1999) and The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera (forthcoming) and is currently writing a history of film music for Cambridge University Press. He is also a composer and pianist. David Horn is Director of the Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool. He was a founding editor of the journal Popular Music (Cambridge University Press) and is author of two bibliographies of American music. He is currently joint managing editor of The Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World.

• Chronology of jazz; The word 'jazz' Krin Gabbard; Part I. Jazz Times: 1. The identity of jazz David Horn; 2. The jazz diaspora Bruce Johnson; 3. The jazz audience Jed Resula; 4. Jazz and dance Robert Crease; Part II. Jazz Practices: 5. Jazz as musical practice Travis Jackson; 6. Jazz as cultural practice Bruce Johnson; 7. Jazz improvization Ingrid Monson; 8. Spontaneity and organization Pete Martin; 9. Jazz among the classics, and the case of Duke Ellington Mervyn Cooke; Part III. Jazz Changes: 10. 1959: the beginning of beyond Darius Brubeck; 11. Free jazz and the avant-garde Jeff Pressing; 12. Fusions and crossovers Stuart Nicholson; Part IV. Soundings: 13. Learning jazz, teaching jazz David Aka; 14. History and myth: the problem of early jazz David Sagar; 15. Analysing jazz Thomas Owens; Part V. Jazz Takes: 16. Valuing jazz Robert Walser; 17. The jazz business Dave Laing; 18. Images of jazz Krin Gabbard; Personalia.

'… most of the writers in this Companion are academics, and it's hard to fault the obvious passion underlying their diverse points of view.' BBC Music Magazine