This course looks at several significant musical artists, movements, and music that emerged in the jazz, creative improvisation, and popular music communities over the past 75 years. Each of the primary topics will be placed in historical, geographical, and cultural context, with particular focus given to performance practice. The digitalization of information has generated a transformative change in how the majority of information resources are accessed as well as some of the formats used by musicians to communicate ideas regarding interpretation, creative process, etc. to audiences. The sheer volume of information at our fingertips necessitates sophisticated digital searches and comprehensive research requires us to navigate physical libraries as well. While the tools to access musical information continue to evolve rapidly, the motivations to do research have spanned generations. These reasons can include expanding our understanding of a particular piece of music; an overview of a stylistic period; the evolution of an artistic movement; interactions between art and society, etc. At the crux of this course is the conviction that savvy utilization of information resources can contribute to forging a personal point of view about a musical composition as well as extra-interpretive musical topics. In addition, the course will focus on honing written and verbal communication to convey that point of view through mediums such as program notes, research proposals, reflective writing, etc.