Back in the thirties and forties, when New York City was the capital of the jazz world--you could hail a cab, ask the driver to take you to "The Street," and find yourself on 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Musicians, jazz lovers, college students, big businessmen--everybody knew that this was "The Street that Never Slept," the Street where every night was New Year's Eve, the Street that Variety editor Abel Green so aptly dubbed "America's Montmartre." Here, for the price of a drink or two, you could walk through the whole history of jazz. Hot jazz was born and raised on...