Customer Reviews

Jazz Notes: Improvisations on Blue Like Jazz

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I am extremely irritated to have wasted my money on this. I am a huge fan of Don's work, have read Blue Like Jazz multiple times as well as his other books, have bought and listened to his MP3 recordings on his website, and read his blog occasionally.

So I was really excited to have some improvisations on one of my favorite Christian books. I knew that there would be some repeat between this and Blue Like Jazz, but the promised "brand new material" and the audio CD that came with it were a total waste.

First, let's be clear about what this is: The book itself is a small hardcover gift book, half the size of a normal book and 139 pages long (so you get about 60 pages of material). The material itself is about 5 chapters from Blue Like Jazz which have been abridged and modified slightly to fit into this small format - nothing new.

The so-called "new material" is 25 paragraphs about where the people from the book are now (nothing depthy or that provided any further connection to the people), a tiny bit about Don's new book, the movie version of Blue, and how it feels to have a bestselling book/ thanks to loyal fans. As an avid reader of Don's work, I have read just about all of it before - the same stuff is touched on for free in his blog.

The enclosed audio CD is 45 minutes long and is excerpts from Blue Like Jazz, the audio book. Zero new info. I hoped it might be actual jazz songs that inspired him, or something different from what I had just read. But they basically packaged the audio version and the book version together, so the content is nearly identical on the CD and book.

I'll give this two stars instead of one just because if you have a friend who hates to read and will never read the real book Blue Like Jazz, this might be a good gift. They don't even have to read it, they can listen. But that's the only reason I can see anyone buying this instead of Blue Like Jazz.

This was a total waste of money for me and I am really disappointed in Don for agreeing to publish this. The title and misleading info on it makes me feel like he and the publishers hoped that more than a few diehard fans would purchase this book, believing there actually was some new material in here as advertised.

I feel lied to by someone that I look to for moral insights. I am disappointed to say the least.

Allow me to begin with a short excerpt:

"Many of our attempts to understand and define the Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands my complexity." (page 101)

Buy one for your car, put one in your iPod, keep one in the office, have one in every bathroom, and make sure one is on your night stand. A perfect gift for a friend. What can I say, I adore Donald Miller's stuff, even when Thomas Nelson published this remix of his classic, Blue Like Jazz.

That being said, the audio CD that accompanies the book is a dismal disappointment. Somebody at TN had the bright idea to mix some awful background music with Don reading a selection of his prose. Hey, Thomas Nelson --- kill the background music!!! It was a terrible distraction when one is attempting to focus on the essence of what Don is saying...it didn't work.

A great contribution. A wonderful gift for a friend. Use the CD as a flying saucer with your neighbor's barking dog whose is chained up in their backyard 24-7.

In summary, reading Donald Miller has this effect on me, "Wonder is the feeling we get when we do just that --- let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. And I don't believe that there is any better worship than wonder." (p. 109).

Thank you Thomas-Nelson and Donald Miller

This is a specialty book, a little bigger than picket size, hardback, a good gift format, which is so popular right now. Miller here provides some personal reflections and background on the personal experiences and concepts presented in his earlier book Blue Like Jazz.

Miller is a refreshingly honest and personal writer. He has a self-deprecating style that will have you bursting out in laughter at some unexpected comment! He can portray his own inner struggle in a way you will identify with!

You can go through the experiences with him, and as he opens up his thinking process, you can think through the challenges and concepts that he was experiencing. Miller shares his safari of moral and spiritual questing and clarifying. He was a member of a church, but uncertain, and found some questions not being dealt with. He proceeded to learn from the world at large and reference that to his Christian background.

He found the figure and teachings of Jesus a continuing solid focus, which continued as a core of values and moral reference. His writing here is hilarious as he shares some of the unusual experiences he and some friends go through. He chose to go to a college known for its radical, antichristian attitude.

He wanted to explore the philosophical context and learn what was motivating some of these students. In this context, he continues to ask whether being a Christian makes sense on that campus or in this modern world. He and some friends take some radical approaches to implement the teachings of Jesus, as opposed to the standard church ideas of how to be a Christian.

For instance, he and his small group of Christian friends decided on a special activity for Renaissance Weekend. They decided to set up a confession booth, address as monks, and take confessions. Only this was reverse confession.

They decided they would confess, as Christians, for all the current failures and historical sins of Christians in their society and through history. They approached this with trepidation, not really sure what this would entail or exactly how they would go about it. After they began the activity, it so surprised the first person that he went around telling everyone else and it brought about a reconciliation on the campus.

This puzzling, novel approach the young Christians took facilitated bridging a social gap and clarifying some misconceptions about Christians and the Christian message. Miller and his friends tried to bypass the old negative churchy conceptions by focusing on Jesus and the way they were trying to follow him.

Miller shares this and many more experience in Blue Like Jazz. In Notes, he provides some more personal reflections on the background of the events and how the process of trying to be like Jesus has gone for him. The tone you feel is that Miller has found life is a Wonder, an adventure. In faith, the adventure takes on deeper meaning, and Faith allows you to question and probe without fearing the answers you will find!

This is a hilarious and poignant gift booklet. Enjoy it and give it to someone you love!

Have you read Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz" yet? If not, you may be in lagging behind. This bestselling 2003 book, written in a Kerouac stream-of-thought personal essay style with a touch of Anne Lamott's irreverence (that makes you feel guilty for laughing at religious people) and some honest down-to-earth self-deprecating genuineness seems to have touched a chord in people worldwide. So far, the book subtitled "Non-Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality" has sold more than a million copies and not only remains among the top selling inspirational books in the nation, but each year it outsells the previous year--for five straight years after its publication. That is phenomenal in any market.

Anyone who has read "Blue Like Jazz' can never forget Miller's opening story. He writes:

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

"After that I liked jazz music.

"Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.

"I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened."

After that, who would not want to read what follows? But for those who have yet to climb aboard, I might suggest that you look into a shorter version of the book: a little hardback gift book entitled "Jazz Notes: Improvisations on Blue Like Jazz." It is a just-released selection of excerpts from "Blue Like Jazz," a sort of literary equivalent of a remix CD--cool sound-bytes combined with brand new material that offers the reader an inside look at some Miller's unforgettable--and outrageous--characters. "Jazz Notes" is the essential Donald Miller with non-religious (often irreligious) reflections on how his incredible spiritual odyssey started; what happened to him that helped him experience grace and faith for the first time, right smack in the middle of one of America's most liberal colleges; a recasting of the marvelous "confession booth" account; and how he discovered a surprising way to really love other people--and himself. On top of all that, "Jazz Notes" includes a bonus audio CD of some of the book's timely excerpts read by Miller.

Of course, not everyone will like "Jazz Notes," or for that matter "Blue Like Jazz." For some Donald Miller is a bit too earthy, too worldly, too cynical. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. But even the most shocked among Miller's readers will probably find themselves chuckling uncomfortably at the inconsistencies that plague modern Christianity or else squirming before the mirror this insightful young "prophet to postmoderns" sets before us.

I have a lot of friends who simply would not devote the time to reading the original Blue Like Jazz, so Jazz Notes has been a great gift-book alternative. It focuses on the key elements of the original book, and I found the several pages of new material interesting.

I could say the same thing about the "bonus disc." A disc that clocks in under one hour is a good alternative to listening to hours upon hours of Don Miller reading his book, especially given that his spoken-word delivery isn't as dynamic as his words on a page.