"Benjamin Cawthra insightfully narrates the vast history of jazz-and its turbulent love-hate relationship with American culture.... To Cawthra, jazz photography genuinely captures a moment in time-these images are 'benchmarks' in the metamorphosis of music." (Down Beat) "Bold, ruminative and personal, jazz music poses a challenge to the ace lensman that is answered repeatedly in these pages. Namely, how to capture the elusive internal makeup of any given jazz musician in a two-dimensional image that acts as a portal to the artist's soul... Ideal reading while spining Monk or Kind of Blue. Four stars." (MOJO) "In Blue Notes in Black and White, you sense an author consumed and excited by his subject. He's synthesized loads of the literature and argument around jazz, and he builds particularly on recent works of historiography." (New York Times)"

Benjamin Cawthra is associate professor of history and associate director of the Center for Oral and Public History at California State University, Fullerton.