"Irrespective of tempo, his melodic invention was always strange and haunting. On a jump number, he would impose a weird mood; a ballad was transformed into a nostalgic song, searching and mysterious.

The subtitle of The Jazzmen says a lot about what drew Tye to his subjects: "How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America." Tye has now written several books that grapple ...