The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

A few years ago, I enjoyed the Warholian effect of television exposure when, quite unexpectedly, my name was uttered on a major network TV show. The star of this popular medical drama boasts, during a lull in the action: "I'm reading Ted Gioia's History of Jazz." And there it went—whooshhh!—my moment of mass- market visibility, over almost as soon as it…