New Edition Out Now | The Bluffer's Guide to Jazz
Paul Barnes brings the original guide to jazz bang up to date.
Never again confuse your corn with your jam, your mouldy fig with your funky smelly, or your hep with your hip. Bask in the admiration of your fellow enthusiasts as you explain the difference between bebop and hard bop, and pronounce confidently about the provenance of the word 'jazz' (and, indeed, 'boogie').
The guide coaches readers on how to become all-round jazz bluffers. There are chapters covering the twists and turns of jazz's history, the killer albums and the killer musicians who made them, and the jargon you'll need to con a pro.
A 5-million-copy bestselling series, The Bluffer's Guides® have been helping people out of sticky situations for over four decades. Now relaunched, they're back – and not just in paperback. E-books are available from all major online bookstores. Bluffer's mission is to eradicate social embarrassment from this world, and (with the help of their witty experts) they're well on their way to doing just that.
The Sunday Telegraph described the original series as containing 'an amazing amount of solid fact disguised as frivolous observation' and Daily Mail hailed the guides as providing a 'means to apparent instant erudition without actually having to know or study anything.'
The latest release from Bluffer's is the updated edition of Peter Gammond's original Bluffer's Guide to Jazz brought bang up to date by BBC radio veteran Paul Barnes.
Paul Barnes took up the trumpet at the age of 11, and while at art school he played in the Weary City Stompers (WC, for short). He has worked as a presenter on BBC Radio 4's Today, The World at One and Woman's Hour, among others, and continues to dispense his blend of rhythm and rhubarb weekly – some say weakly – on the BBC Radio jazz and blues programme The Late Paul Barnes.
Peter Gammond was an infant prodigy, playing the gramophone at the age of three and revealing a natural winding action that was the admiration of all who beheld it. He is now acknowledged as one of the country's leading gramophone players, as well as the author of an excessive number of books on music. Most of them have been compiled from the bits that zealous editors removed from earlier ones. Thus there is a remarkable uniformity about his work (something that has not escaped his critics).
FOR PRESS ENQUIRIES
Emma Smith | 0207 042 0228 | esmith@bluffers.com
Review copies available on request.
E-book available for Kindle and iPad at Amazon.co.uk and iBookstore (RRP £4.99). Print edition now available at Waterstones and other retailers (RRP £6.99).
Bluffer's Guide®, Bluffer's Guides®, Bluffer's®, and Bluff Your Way® are registered trademarks. Use of these trademarks is forbidden unless prior permission has been obtained from Percival Limited (trading as Bluffer's®).
