Poetry Friday is hosted today by A Teaching Life.

For Poetry Friday -- "Jazz" by Walter Dean Myers with illustrations by Christopher Myers.

This father/son team has hit all the right notes with this collection of poems that celebrate the history of jazz. Each poem and piece of art resonates with their passion as they highlight the major turning points in the development of this unique music from its beginning in African rhythms through swing and be-bop to the modern day.  An introduction, glossary and timeline fill in details.

But it is the rhythms in word and picture that will hold the readers entranced.  It's everything a reader might hope for: African drums humming, Louis Armstrong raising chills with his horn, the cool moan of a New Orleans funeral march, the improvisation, the syncopation and more that can't be imagined -- only experienced.

And as the senior Myers fills the reader's head with music, his son fills the eyes with jazz inspired movement and color that pulses with the rhythm of the words.