Bluff Your Way in Jazz (The Bluffer's Guides) [Paperback]

Peter Clayton (Author), Peter Gammond (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1996 | Series: The Bluffer's Guides

All you need to know on the subject of jazz so that you can blow your own horn in any social setting.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Bluffer's Guide to Jazz provides enough basic knowledge to get by in conversation with an aficionado and, despite its flippant approach, is crammed with information."
--The Daily Mail

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

"You need to understand that the demanding nature of jazz means that all jazzmen decline very quickly. After a brief period of being underrated they find their distinctive tone, make the recordings by which they will always be known in their twenties, get ambitious in their thirties, and in their forties start on the road to oblivion.
Bluffer's Guides is a series of snappy little books containing facts, jargon, and all you need to know for instant expertise.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Ravette Pub Ltd (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0948456647
• ISBN-13: 978-0948456640
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,665,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #54 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Entertainment > Music > Musical Genres > Blues

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A good book, whether it's all true or not., January 10, 2011

By 

S. Schonberger (near Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Bluffer's Guide to Jazz: Bluff Your Way in Jazz (Bluffer's Guides - Oval Books) (Paperback)

A friend talked about another Bluffer's Guide book and I looked it up. I didn't realize it was part of a series, but when I discovered that I had to get the jazz guide.

I found it very informative, even though it's a thin book. I suppose if it were a huge compendium it wouldn't be digestible for the purpose it's meant to serve.

The sense of humor in the writing made it fun reading. Although jazz originated in the US, the book appears to be from the UK, which gave it an interesting at-a-distance tone, and a more international perspective.

However, the humor made me wonder at times whether the author was inventing details in instances where historical details are absent. I found nothing that looked _wrong_, but it sometimes felt more like it was credible but not documented, as opposed to definite truth. However, since the book's title is "_Bluff_ Your Way", and it's presented as material for informal conversation rather than scholarly research, that's reasonable. And maybe it even _is_ all clearly historical, even though the tone doesn't present it that way.

I certainly don't count the informality as a point against the book, although a pointer to a web site with the book's references and pointers to further reading might have been nice. One doesn't really _need_ a book about bluffing one's way through a topic, but if one _wants_ it, this is a good one.

I see that there's a revised edition available now. I've only read the original, with the picture of a shiny trumpet.