Bluff Your Way in Jazz (Bluffer's Guides) - Softcover

"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.

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.