Of all the styles of jazz to emerge in the 20th century, none is more passionate, up-tempo, or steeped in an outsider tradition than Gypsy Jazz. Blending travelogue, detective story, and personal narrative, this work captures the history and culture of this elusive music.

Prologue Music in the Shadows; The Imperfect History of Gypsy Jazz/ Chapter 1 The Guitar with a Human Voice;In Search of Django Reinhardt/ Chapter 2 The Boy With the Banjo; Into a Zigzag Paradise; Chapter 3 Bals Musette; Music from the Dark Side of the City of Light; Chapter 4Jazz Modernistique; Revisiting the Babylon of Gypsy Jazz/ Chapter 5 Songs of One Thousand and One Nights; Django Reinhardt, Schnuckenack Reinhardt, and Gypsy Jazz Under the Nazis; Chapter 6 Gypsy Bebop; From Dizzy and Bird to Django and the Gibson Generation; Chapter 7 Les Guitares à Moustache; Revolutionary Jazz Guitars for a Jazz Revolution/ Chapter 8 Crossroads; On the Road to Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer/ Chapter 9 Dynasty;Les Frères Ferret and their Musical Clan/Chapter 10La Dernière Valse des Niglos; Saints and Sinners of the Malha Clan/ Chapter 11 Au Son des Guitares; On the Trail of Patotte Bousquet/ Chapter 12 The Unsung Master of the Gypsy Waltz; Tracing the Legacy of Tchan Tchou/ Chapter 13 The Lost; The Secret History of Lousson Baumgartner and the Other Family/ Chapter 14 Minstrel; Bamboula Ferret and the Travels of a Romany Troubadour/ Chapter 15 Resurrection; The New Elegance of Biréli Lagrène, Stochelo Rosenberg, Angelo Debarre, and Ninine Garcia/ Chapter 16 The Music Thieves; Into America with Danny Fender, Johnny Guitar, John Adomono, and Julio Bella/ Chapter 17 Gypsy Jazz Rap; Syntax and the Search for Le Meilleur Chemin/Chapter 18 The Most Dangerous Guitar Lesson; Jamming with David Reinhardt/ Epilogue/Latcho Drom The Long Road/ Recommended Listening/ Notes/ Recommended Reading/ Bibliography /Acknowledgments/Index