This collection of writings, many of them out of print for years, include an account of B.B. King's concert in Moscow, Paul Desmond's one-off article on the Dave Brubeck Quarter's days at the Orange County Fair, the writing of critic and trombonist Mike Zwerin and Pops Foster's account of tiding over Prohibition with Louis Armstrong in 1919, with two half-pints of whisky. This anthology includes stories about the history of jazz, with an indication of the terminology of another world that contains its own traditions, code words and protective humour.