Spanning seven decades of American music created between the 1890's and the 1950's, this audio archive comes with 168 CDs (3,179 recordings) that chronicle the contributions to jazz by a wide variety of artists ranging from Scott Joplin and Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. All songs have been re-mastered using 24-bit, 96-khz digital technology to provide the best sound quality available, resulting in songs that sound as good as when they were first recorded. The archive includes 36 CDs of ragtime, early jazz, and Dixieland, 28 CDs of blues, four CDs of boogie-woogie, 60 CDs of swing, be-bop, and modern jazz, 20 CDs of big band, and 20 CDs of vocalists. Includes two books totaling 360 pages that details the lives and work s of featured artists. 10" H x 11" W x 5 1/2" D. (16 lbs.)