Allow me to join the parade of well-wishers saluting Alex Ross on his National Book Critics Circle Award for The Rest Is Noise. I have a strong hunch that this won’t be the last award that Alex picks up for his vital tome. I second his recommendation of Ben Ratliff’s Coltrane: The Story of a Sound, and I now plan to dig into a copy of Joan Acocella’s Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints  — right after I finish this.