Customer Reviews

Bluff Your Way in Jazz (Bluffer's Guides)

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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.