"Ake blends careful historical research with intelligent textual criticism and sophisticated cultural theory. . . His critiques augment and enhance our understanding and appreciation of great artistry, but they do much more. This is new, imaginative, original, and generative work. There are very few people who can write about both music theory and social theory with such clarity, depth, and insight."—George Lipsitz, author of Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place "David Ake is a jazz artist who has woodshedded with his critical theory as much as with his instrument. As an astute commentator on a wide range of jazz subjects, he has the virtuosity of an Art Tatum and the eclecticism of a John Zorn."—Krin Gabbard, author of Jammin' at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema "David Ake's writing combines the best of modern scholarship with the no-nonsense attitude of a gigging musician. In Jazz Cultures, he seizes upon precisely those issues and historical moments that best reveal how jazz studies might mature into something worthy of the music. A wonderful antidote to the usual cliches of jazz history and a splendid debut."—Scott DeVeaux, author of The Birth of Bebop