Charlie Barnet (1913-1991) is best known as the popular bandleader whose hits included Cherokee, Pompton Turnpike, and Skyliner. But he was also the first to break the colour barrier in a popular dance band, and his black musicians included Clark Terry, Roy Eldridge, and singer Lena Horne; his white musicians included Jack Purvis, Red Norvo, Maynard Ferguson, and Doc Severinson. Barnet not only played jazz, he lived the jazz life: in this book, he writes of his whiskey and marijuana habits, of his whorehouse visits and his half-dozen marriages. Charlie Barnet epitomised the jazz age, and...