Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism, Thomas Brothers, W.W. Norton, 2014, 608 pp., $39.95, ISBN 978 0 393 06582 4

An impressive and scholarly work that offers an accessible account of a key development in modernism. Secularly located in an understanding of the culture of interwar America, this book highlights Armstrong's role in the development of jazz from a predominantly black form that incorporated elements of the blues and collective improvisation, into the invention of modern musical styles. Drugs, race, class, place and gender are all aspects of this exhilarating story.