West Coast Jazz

"Ted Gioia is very much a West Coast jazz partisan, and his informed enthusiasm and wide-ranging research make West Coast Jazz a highly rewarding and arguable book. . . . Makes a large, disparate, unruly subject not only coherent but also intriguing."—Chicago Tribune

"Gioia writes with the musical knowledge of a jazzman and the immediacy of a reporter, in language that has a casual grace."—Bill Kisliuk, San Francisco Review of Books

"Ranks among the most distinguished works of jazz scholarship yet published."—Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

"While the requisite space is devoted to such cool icons as Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, Gioia also takes an expert, often iconoclastic look at the careers of other West Coast jazz men, both well-known and obscure. . . . Anyone looking for a basic history of the California scene should start with this smart, opinionated book."—Chris Morris, Billboard

"A book that desperately needed to be written and has turned out to be a surprise landmark and masterpiece."—Bruce and Joel Klauber, Jazziz