Synopsis
All you need to know on the subject of jazz so that you can blow your own horn in any social setting.
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About the Author
Peter Clayton was born in the Deep South of London well below the Fortnum-Mason Line. By devious means, such as letting it all happen, he gradually took over several key programs, sometimes heavily disguised, and joined the ranks of the BBC's immovables, gracing the air with his wit and wisdom until his death in 1991. Peter Gammond was born on the far North-West frontier in a Depression. After passing through Oxford, leaving a trail of half-finished poems and an old trombone, he ended up in Brixton where he and Peter Clayton collaborated on various musico-literary projects. Their joint efforts included: Fourteen Miles on a Clear Night (later retitled 22.53 Kilometres in a High Pressure Zone) and The Jazz Man's A-Z of Guinness. John Lewis writes about music for Time Out and anyone else who will pay him. He lives in North London with his wife, his daughter, and his cat, all of whom dislike him playing Ornette Coleman LPs. He thinks that Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus is a really cool title for an album.
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.
Bluffer's Guides is a series of snappy little books containing facts, jargon, and all you need to know for instant expertise.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Bluffer's Guide to Jazz
By Clayton, PeterOval Books
Copyright © 2003 Clayton, PeterAll right reserved.
ISBN: 1902825926
Anon
It's a pretty safe bet, if an unfamiliar 1940s/50s name crops up in conversation, that you can easily get away with saying: 'Oh, yes. Parker roomed with him for a time.' Even if he didn't, nobody is going to be sure enough to say so. And it somehow makes the unknown musician seem a better player.
Louisiana
The decrepit state of their instruments and the decrepit state of the players who all drank heavily or smoked marijuana, tended to give genuine New Orleans jazz the flavour of fried boots.
Jazz legends
Bolden's main claim to fame was the loudness of his playing; it being said, with the straightest of faces, that he could be heard 'fourteen miles away on a clear night'. As nobody who was fourteen miles away at the time has ever come forward to verify this, it is yet another jazz legend that has to be treated with a modicum of suspicion.
A state of mind
Anyone looking for a clear definition of the blues, even in the most scholarly books, will be told that blues are fundamentally a state of mind. The spirit of the blues inhabits all true jazz. It's what makes it 'funky'.
It's a pretty safe bet, if an unfamiliar 1940s/50s name crops up in conversation, that you can easily get away with saying: 'Oh, yes. Parker roomed with him for a time.' Even if he didn't, nobody is going to be sure enough to say so. And it somehow makes the unknown musician seem a better player.
Louisiana
The decrepit state of their instruments and the decrepit state of the players who all drank heavily or smoked marijuana, tended to give genuine New Orleans jazz the flavour of fried boots.
Jazz legends
Bolden's main claim to fame was the loudness of his playing; it being said, with the straightest of faces, that he could be heard 'fourteen miles away on a clear night'. As nobody who was fourteen miles away at the time has ever come forward to verify this, it is yet another jazz legend that has to be treated with a modicum of suspicion.
A state of mind
Anyone looking for a clear definition of the blues, even in the most scholarly books, will be told that blues are fundamentally a state of mind. The spirit of the blues inhabits all true jazz. It's what makes it 'funky'.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Bluffer's Guide to Jazzby Clayton, Peter Copyright © 2003 by Clayton, Peter. Excerpted by permission.
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