Of all music genres, none is as uniquely American as jazz. It’s also the style that has been most open to innovation and experimentation, and it’s easy to track how jazz has changed in its nearly 100 years of existence. Zune’s Jazz Collection is a painstakingly researched and compiled journey, from the initial wave of Dixieland and big band through the liberating sounds of bop and fusion. If the legacies of Louis, Duke, Bird, Trane, Miles, Monk or Mingus have intrigued you, then...

It is impossible to isolate the history of black people in this country to a single expression but since we deal with music, we are going to go with what we know. The history of the American recording industry is largely (if not completely) influenced by the African-American experience. This spans so many styles and eras that it would difficult to dive into them all. So what we did was create The Black History Collection in the Zune Marketplace to celebrate the contributions and commemorate the struggles...