Albert Murray probably wrote someplace why he titled the third book in his semi-autobiographical trilogy "The Seven League Boots," but I haven't found it yet. The definition of the term, at least by consensus on the internet, makes sense: Seven League Boots are boots of myth and fairy tale that enable their wearer to take seven league strides (about 24.5 miles). Googling the phrase even uncovered a 1950s newspaper advertisement from the American Trucking Association arguing that the trucking industry is "Today's Seven League Boots...overtaking your high cost of living." The wonder of traveling great distances in very little time is ubiquitous in Murray's third, triumphant novel. His protagonist, Scooter, faithfully stops amidst his various Swing Era adventures to assess his distance from the Spyglass Tree back in Gasoline Point, not only in terms of miles, but in terms of history, personal development, achievement and enlightenment. It is tantamount to an involuntary reflex for Scooter to credit the folks back home who put him on the right path and encouraged him along the way, especially the various "fairy godmothers" who intervened at pivotal moments just like those in the stories he heard when he was a boy.The title choice could also be a nod to Richard Halliburton's book published in 1935 detailing his swashbuckling adventures all over the globe. Back in Scooter's childhood, detailed in the first book, "Train Whistle Guitar," Scooter and his best friend Buddy Marshal explored the canebrakes, woods and rivers of Gasoline Point imagining themselves to be "explorers and discoverers and Indian scouts as well as sea pirates and cowboys and African spear fighters not to mention the two schemingest gamblers and back alley ramblers this side of Philmayork." In The Seven League Boots, Scooter achieves his childhood dreams of adventure and exploration, crisscrossing the country with a top shelf jazz band, living the high life in Hollywood and touring Europe.At one point during his European jaunt, Scooter contemplated the Americans who'd visited Europe before him, the veterans of World War I he'd listened to back in the barbershop in Gasoline Point, other famous musicians, and the Lost Generation of writers, particularly Hemingway. That moment reminded me of another American novel written by another iconic lover of Jazz, Jack Kerouac. Comparing Kerouac's Desolation Angels and Albert Murray's The Seven League Boots, for example, illuminates the potentially enormous contribution to America Murray's works could be if they were only read more. The jazz in The Seven League Boots is the jazz of Duke Ellington, the Swing Era and big bands; while the jazz in Kerouac's many works emerged shortly thereafter in an age of the avant garde, improvisation and Bebop: think Thelonious Monk. Both writers, neither of whom were musicians themselves, wrote like the jazz they loved. Murray's prose is smooth, blues-filled, shouting and cool. Kerouac's is frantic, ecstatic, dissonant and tangential. Both books follow their protagonists across our country and across the globe, pay homage to those who came before and preach the gospel of jazz, but only Murray's provides young Americans with a game-plan for success in every aspect of the word. We could have used another forty years of Kerouac. We are fortunate to have enjoyed 97 years of Murray. This triumphant final novel of the trilogy riffs on hard work, respect for elders, imagination and love of country in the context of a young black man making his way in Jim Crow America. Have your students read Kerouac and then transition to Murray. Have Thelonious open the set for the Duke.