Reggie Nadelson's top ten jazz books

Blood Count, Reggie Nadelson's ninth Artie Cohen novel, "finds the Russian-born NYPD detective investigating the death of an ailing Russian woman, one of the few white occupants of a once-grand apartment block in Harlem. Cohen is alerted to the death by an ex-girlfriend who lives there, but when he arrives there's a strange air of something having been covered up."

At the Guardian, Nadelson named her top ten jazz books.

One book on her list:

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje

This is a brilliant novel imagining Buddy Bolden, the man many feel more or less invented jazz in New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century in New Orleans. There is no known recording of Bolden's music. And he spent the last decades of his life in a mental institution. Ondaatje's genius here is to re-invent Bolden and the world of Storyville – New Orleans Red Light District – and make us hear the music he played.

Read about another book on the list.

Also see: John Edward Hasse's five best books on jazz.

--Marshal Zeringue