In a series of fictional portraits, this book captures the dark heart of jazz, its pathos and lyricism, savagery and self destruction - Charlie Mingus in New York: friven by rage, built and behaving like a battering man; Art Pepper in prison: an alto and Alcatraz; Lester Young in the Alvin: a soft sound in a world too hard and harsh and dirty; Bud Powell in Paris: his skull still throbbing from the blow of a nightstick, his piano a deranged instrument; Chet Baker; Ben Webster; Ellington and Monk. The author also wrote Ways of Telling and the Colour of Memory.