Customer Reviews

Jazz For Dummies, 2nd Edition

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I don't intend to become a jazz player, but I am curious about the underlying layers of this fascinating style of music. This book has not only driven me to a deeper understanding of the origins and of technical aspects of the jazz, but has indeed provided me with a better appreciation of it.
After reading this book I just want more jazz!

Dirk Sutro's JAZZ FOR DUMMIES aims to introduce the genre to neophytes. It unfortunately suffers from the flaws of both a kitchen-sink approach, padding the book with irrelevant material, and some major oversights. Note that with the second edition the book no longer comes with a CD.

Sutro covers the major jazz figures from the hazy beginnings in New Orleans up to Miles Davis' proteges. I was aghast, however, to see Sutro completely overlook the ECM scene. How can you write a general introduction to jazz without mentioning Keith Jarrett or Jan Garbarek, two of the best-selling jazz artists from the 1970s on? He mentions Wynton Marsalis, but none of the controversy over his strict definition of jazz and exclusion of non-African-Americans from the canon. There are also some factual errors here, as when he claims that Schoenberg, Webern and Berg pioneered microtonal writing, setting the way for a strain of jazz, when in fact the innovation of the Second Viennese School was using 12-tone rows with only semitone steps.

The section on building up a jazz collection is better, with a list of recommended recordings and some pointers to audio equipment. However, some of its advice is lame. In talking about buying headphones, for instance, Sutro says "Ask the salesperson at the local audio store which headphones are best for your needs," when the salesperson is probably just going to recommend whatever gets him the most commission.

While most people buying JAZZ FOR DUMMIES will undoubtedly be music listeners who want to find inroads to this important but sometimes difficult genre, too much of the book is dedicated to jazz performance and recording and sales techniques. In a difficult market for record sells, would anyone be willing to take the advice of a book like this and an author with no experience in the field for how to market his music? Finally, an entire chapter is dedicated to how to play jazz to impress your friends at parties, and I hate to see this great music used for such snobbish reasons when it is so fascinating for its musical value.

This book was assigned for a college class I took, but it is a great overview of Jazz for anyone interested.