Blues Up and Down Jazz in Our Time Author:Tom Piazza In these pages Tom Piazza, the award-winning author of The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz, chronicles two decades of upheaval in the jazz world--and presents a persuasive vision of the music's continuing role in our culture. A tour-de-force mixture of reportage, criticism, and essay, Blues Up and Down confronts the central question... more »s facing the music today: Is there a conflict between innovation and tradition? Is there such a thing as "progress" in the arts? And what the stakes in the debate--for musicians, for critics, and for listeners? His answers are provocative and original, and his survey of the music, coming at a crucial time in its history, is fresh and exhilarating on every page.« less