Draws extensively on Collier's personal archive and on interviews with fellow musicians, ex-students and colleagues. It locates Collier and his work within the social and cultural changes which occurred during his life and, particularly, in relation to developments in British and European jazz of the 1960s and 70s.
The book follows a number of themes- movers and shakers, drugs and addictions, relationships with Rock and Blues, new technologies, media coverage, arts funding, from clubs to concert halls, record companies and, not least, the economics of Jazz. In dong so, the book challenges many conventional understandings of British Jazz and its scene.