The History of Jazz [2nd ed.] (Ted Gioia, 2011)

You really can't ask for a better single-volume introduction to jazz. I appreciated that author Ted Gioia approached the genre in all of its disparate forms evenhandedly. I remember watching the Ken Burns Jazz miniseries a few years back and was astounded by the fact they devoted about 4/5 of the entire series to everything up through the Swing Era, then galloped through the last 50+ years in the final two or three episodes (Wynton Marsalis, musical advisor, likely had a hand in this). So it nice to see much more focus on bop, fusion, free, and other more fringe types of jazz covered.

I still don't consider myself any kind of jazz genius, but the reading about all of the different artists was very enjoyable and informative, and I've already lined up some more direct biographical monographs on some of the key figures of the field.