To state it simply, jazz studies needs more ethnographic work. Thomas Greenland's monograph is therefore a timely contribution to existing scholarship in this field. Drawing from Ralph Ellison's formulation that “art by its nature is social,” Greenland, an independent scholar and active guitarist, shows how social and musical relations are catalyzed and sustained among participants of what he calls the “avant-jazz scene” in New York City (150). Through participant observation and more than one hundred interviews, Greenland reveals the tensions, arguments, power dynamics, and meanings that shape this community. As a fellow music scholar and practitioner, I appreciate Greenland's thorough methodology as well as his significant experience as a performer. Jazz musicians, industry professionals, and fans will see their daily lives thoughtfully represented in this book.Greenland's theoretical framework transposes Christopher Small's “musicking” to “jazzing” to examine the interrelated activities of performing, composing, promoting, and representing jazz (7). Next, he draws from biological theories positing that beings coevolve not as individual selves but by living together in symbiosis and working together in synergy (6). He also extends Howard Becker's idea of art worlds to “jazz worlds,” representing audiences as agents who comprise a broader “community of interest and practice” (34; emphasis in the original). Greenland categorizes scene participants as musicians, “jazz professionals,” and fans (6). Together, these actors form a local “avant-jazz” community. Avant-jazz emphasizes radical experimentation and improvisation over precomposition, and fans agree that the music is best experienced live.The book's six chapters explore several productive themes, the first of which is the concept of listening as a skill—what Greenland terms “big ears”—cultivated through the experiences of fans enticed by the process rather than the final product of musical encounter (see chapter 2). Greenland identifies two types of listening practices (46). “Listening in” describes how fans come to jazz through recordings, liner notes, musical training, radio, and internet media. “Listening out” pertains to how “listening in” informs fans’ interpretations of live performance. Those who value live music over recordings express a desire to hear unfiltered music, to observe musicians’ body language, and to witness musicians’ latest projects, thus feeling a sense of immediacy (54).Jazzing also explores the social interactions among scene participants. Jazz fans negotiate aesthetic values and power relations within the community, sometimes conferring prestige simply through their presence and shaping orthodox opinions from which dissension is discouraged. Proprietors and musicians cooperate to find solutions to economic and artistic challenges and address concerns around ticket prices, band fees, scheduling, and promotion. Proprietors also must balance the desire to accommodate committed fans and the need to attract casual audiences, who may talk during performances but are often the biggest spenders. Exploring the nexus of musician and fan agency, Greenland argues that the moment of performance is coauthored by all participants, creating “a temporary state of social and spiritual synergy” that musicians and fans interpret as metaphysical (165). Audiences convey a longing to feel musicians immersed in a state of improvisational flow, which generates sustenance through the mutual empathy of shared experience and communal consciousness of these extramusical moments. By being present often, fans become aesthetically and spiritually attuned to artists. Improvisation invites audiences to witness unfolding musical events, a “historical ‘now’” that does not repeat, thus their participation produces an energy from which musicians feed (151).Although there is much to like about what Jazzing reveals, the book's omissions strike me as ironic and glaring, particularly given the significance of historical and contemporary debates concerning race and genre. Greenland alludes neither to the historical opposition to the use of “jazz,” as voiced, for example, by Max Roach and Duke Ellington, nor to its heterogeneous meanings among modern-day participants. This is not to say that the author's interlocutors don't find meaning in the term, but his silence on how “jazz” operates as a floating signifier with multiple interpretations makes his work less compelling than it could have been. I think the term “jazzing,” then, obscures Greenland's goals, and he could have more appropriately chosen “avanting” or “avantgardeing” for the book's title.I also wish the book offered more critical reflection and engagement with the ideological basis of his interlocutors’ suppositions and the ways they reinscribe contested aesthetic boundaries. Greenland does not challenge the stylistic hierarchies and discourses of “new” that his interlocutors tend to employ. At times, he belies his investment in the avant-jazz scene by betraying an apparent unfamiliarity with important musical figures. For example, when Smoke owner Frank Christopher discusses the “mighty-burner,” Greenland neglects to explain that Christopher was referring to the nickname of celebrated organist Charles Earland (in whose Chicago-based quartet I performed for two years). Finally, Greenland's lack of engagement with race scholarship leaves the reader to question the analytical utility of his discussion of white audiences and black musicians. Greenland foregoes the opportunity to join an ongoing disciplinary discussion of race and musical practice (e.g., Porter's What Is This Thing Called Jazz? [2002] and Radano's Lying Up a Nation: Race and Black Music [2003]).Notwithstanding these critiques, Jazzing is a welcome contribution that centers the perspectives of the social actors who make jazz meaningful and calls much-needed attention to how they interpret and reproduce it in a particular urban space. Whereas previous jazz ethnographies, such Berliner's Thinking in Jazz (1994), Monson's Saying Something (1996), and Jackson's Blowin’ the Blues Away (2012), also explored musicians’ perspectives and scene interactions, Jazzing offers a more intimate portrayal of the intricate relations between fans, musicians, and industry professionals. It sheds light on the inner cultural politics of New York City's avant-jazz scene and helps us to understand why and how it took shape. Greenland offers a model of ethnographic exploration that builds on previous jazz scholarship and should inspire future efforts.