The essential collection of jazz writing by the celebrated poet and author of Blues People-reissued with a new introduction by the author.

In the 1960s, LeRoi Jones-who would later be known as Amiri Baraka-was a pioneering jazz critic, articulating in real time the incredible transformations of the form taking place in the clubs and coffee houses of New York City. In Black Music, he sheds light on the brilliant young jazz musicians of the day: John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, and others.

Combining firsthand immediacy with wide-ranging erudition, Black Music articulates the complexities of modern jazz while also sharing insights on the nature of jazz criticism, the creative process, and the development of a new way forward for black artists. This rich and vital collection is comprised of essays, reviews, interviews, liner notes, musical analyses, and personal impressions from 1959-1967.

"In Black Music, Baraka wrote with ecstasy-highly informed and intricate-about ecstatically complex music."-Richard Brody, The New Yorker

AMIRI BARAKA/LEROI JONES (1934?2014) was the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He was named poet laureate of New Jersey by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, from 2002?2004. His short story collection Tales of the Out & the Gone (Akashic Books) was a New York Times Editors' Choice and won a 2008 PEN/Beyond Margins Award. He is also the author of Home: Social Essays, Black Music, The System of Dante's Hell, and Tales, among other works.