Praised variously as "perhaps the greatest living jazz critic" (Gunther Schuller) and "one of the most distinguished critics (of anything) this country has produced," (Gary Giddins, The Village Voice), Martin Williams has been perceptively chronicling the development of jazz for more than 30 years. Both The Jazz Tradition, which many consider a classic history of jazz, and his previous collection of jazz writings, Jazz Heritage, received the ASCAP-Deems...