Having trouble with the NYT Strand puzzle? Today's puzzle theme “All that jazz” can be really tricky if you don't know the area well.

Below are the hints and answers for Strands #144. We will start with the hints and then lead you to the full solution of Strands #144, so we hope you find it helpful.

WARNING: There are spoilers for Strands #144.

The official theme for NYT Strands #144 is... “All That Jazz

And here's an unofficial tip from me: “Music Geeks Only.”

If you're still not sure, here are some useful words that give you valuable hint tokens:

Still having trouble? Spangram gives you a hint on conjunctions. Today, it starts with an “S” and ends with an “E.”

Scroll down to see what it is.

SUBGENRE.

Now, what is the answer to today's Strand game #144?

Drum roll please.

... And the spangram was SUBGENRE.

Strands #144

“All that jazz”

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Hello Stands fans! I'm a fan of Stands, especially if you're not as familiar with the various sub-genres of jazz as I am. Still, after a little (well, a lot) of trial and error, I managed to get through it without using clues.

Today's topic, “All that jazz,” was by no means subtle, but if you are not a jazz connoisseur, it was not very helpful. In fact, the first two answers I got on the board were due to my searching around for possible words: 'FUNK' and 'COOL'.

From there, I found FUSION in the upper left corner and MODAL to the right of it. Thankfully, I was able to subdivide the board into two pieces by finding a SUBGENRE spangram written across it from left to right.

Knowing where the top of the board ends and the bottom begins was very helpful and showed that there were two words left on both. Starting with the top half, I was able to decipher SWING and ACID in the upper right corner.

The bottom two were a bit more difficult to decipher because they were both longer. However, thanks to the “OP” at the beginning or end of the word, I was able to decipher BEBOP.

Today was more an exercise in endurance than in puzzle enjoyment!

Reading this late in the day? The full text of Strand's solution to yesterday's game 143 can be found here.