This book provides the information needed to get you going as a beginning jazz player. It does assume some previous musical knowledge. The following is the first part of the authors introduction.
I have tried in this book to hand out a simple compass and sketch-map to those who are crossing, for the first time, over the frontier into jazz-land. It isn't an elaborate tourist guide, telling you exactly where you must go and what you should see. In Jazz, I believe, the most one can genuinely do for people is to help them find their own way about. The story of jazz is a pattern of colourful, unpredictable individuals. There are as many views about it as there are jazz-lovers. Many readers will disagree with the plan on which this book is laid out, and on the varying degrees of emphasis given to the varying phases of the jazz story. I can only say in defence: "That's the way I see it—and I have given readers information to guide them to many other authorities on jazz who will give them other aspects of the picture.
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Please excuse the odd errors due to the normal vagaries of scanning and OCRing. I hope you find what is here useful.Rod April 2007