In the Moment: Jazz in the 1980s

Written by an influential critic who has contributed articles to Rolling Stone, The Boston Phoenix, The Atlantic, High Fidelity, and the Village Voice, this book celebrates the perseverence of jazz in an inhospitable decade.
Francis Davis traces the rise of such enterprising jazz "baby boomers" as Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Anthony Davis, David Murray, Bobby McFerrin, Stanley Jordan, Craig Harris, and Billy Bang, and explores the continuing influence of such father figures as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, George Russell, John Lewis, and Roscoe Mitchell. He includes discussions of the low visibility of jazz in the mass media, the uneasy relationship of jazz to pop, and the welcome emergence of the composer as the pivotal figure in what has traditionally been regarded as the improviser's realm.