“A few days ago, the revised and expanded edition of my book The Jazz Standards was published by Oxford University Press. I’ve never had more fun writing a book than in creating this guide to the jazz repertoire—which covers 267 essential songs. These were songs that I first learned in my earliest days as a jazz musician, and they’ve remained familiar friends over the decades. The first edition of The Jazz Standards, published in 2011, earned praise from Sonny Rollins, Dave Brubeck, Lee Konitz, and other jazz luminaries—a tough audience to please, because they know these songs intimately. I must have done something right to get their approval. But the full range of the response to The Jazz Standards went far beyond my expectations. In fact, more readers contacted me in response to this book than about anything I’ve ever published. These were more than fan letters, but smart…