ABSTRACT
The Introduction positions the book within the larger field of popular music and death studies and maps how many jazz histories, documentaries, biopics, and the like show a fascination for jazz and death. Such narratives express, among other things, ideas of what jazz is. Many fans and scholars maintain that there is something inherently special, extraordinary, or different about jazz that profoundly sets it apart from other genres. The Introduction investigates how jazz's exceptionalism is presented in existing literature, focusing on either its unique musical characteristics (improvisation, swing) or its unique social history. In that thinking, jazz is an exceptional music; therefore, its practitioners lead exceptional lives that come to exceptional ends.
