Fans pick 100 books like L'Esprit Manouche

Madame Sidney Pratten is a unique figure in the history of the guitar and sadly neglected by history. She was well known and well connected in her day and taught many notable members of Victorian London society to play guitar, including Princess Alexandra. Her real name was Catharina - in her public work she used her husband’s name, as was common at the time - and she published her Guitar School after many years of teaching, to great acclaim. It is the most informative, wise, and practical guitar book I know, full of useful information, beautiful music, and insight into the learning process.

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When I started playing guitar, all I wanted to do was play the blues. Why a working-class Scottish boy would be so entranced by music so culturally and geographically remote is curious even to me but this book gave me a way in, a key to unlock the skills required to emulate the sounds of the blues greats I loved to hear. As an autodidact, clear explanations, technical advice, and background information were essential to my development and I still use this book with students to this day. 

These timeless melodies, simple yet substantial, transcend time, culture, and locality, as demonstrated by the sudden wave of interest in sea shanties in the UK during the Covid pandemic lockdown. This book contains some of the best-known and loved tunes associated with the sea and the turbulent lives of those who make their living in its environs. Arranged in differing levels of difficulty, this book should amuse and delight anyone with a heart and an ear for a good tune.

Classical music is often seen as being unapproachable, demanding, and difficult, the domain of geniuses and prodigies not for ordinary mortals. This delightful book makes available some of the greatest guitar music ever written in a form that is accessible yet recognisable. It enables the intermediate-level guitarist to advance their abilities while playing pieces that will transfix any audience, impress friends and family and render great satisfaction to the performer. 

Bonnie was as beloved as her exquisite books, and this is one of my favorites (she also did one on Elvis). I miss this lady, but her work remains and Django is a marvelous tribute to one of the most unique and accomplished acoustic guitarists of all time. Reinhardt's story is inspiring because of his success as a Gypsy/Roma musician, but also because of how he became so masterful after a tragic accident that injured his hands. All about what passion can do in the face of difficult circumstances. 

The epic life of French jazz guitarist Django Reinhart deserves a Spielbergian biopic treatment. After the cart fire where he damaged his hand and the personal epiphany of hearing a Louis Armstrong record, the Gypsy guitarist would bring jazz to Europe with his near magical musical improvisations. He lived a wild, carefree life, full of big cars, large dreams, and sensual pleasures. When the Nazis took over Paris, he returned to his homeland, opened one of the city’s most dazzling nightclubs, and made hit records that flooded the French airwaves during the Occupation. When the war was over, his career went out like a light switch and Django repaired to a quiet life in a remote riverfront village, spending his time fishing and painting nudes. 

Howard was a top Los Angeles session guitarist (one of the fabled Wrecking Crew), jazz stylist, and brilliant visionary who combined his skills to create the Guitar Institute of Technology, an innovative, intensive program that trained thousands of professionals and transformed guitar education.

The Guitar Compendium is the result of Howard’s decades of research into learning theory and information flow applied to the guitar. It’s not a standard guitar method (and not designed for raw beginners), but rather a collection of practical, thought-provoking solutions to the universal challenges of learning and playing the instrument, from developing technique to breaking through creative roadblocks. If you’re an aspiring, curious, and perhaps frustrated guitarist, The Praxis System is a unique source of wisdom and inspiration from one of the greatest.

Ellroy at his most avant-garde. The plot is familiar territory for Ellroy fans; murder and political corruption in 1950s LA. But the experimental prose style, including the most pared-down clipped sentences, started to alienate some of his readers. Personally, I regard the book as Ellroy’s masterpiece and the experimentation is justified as it helps to deliver a lightning-fast pace.

Back when jazz was popular and popular music was jazz, Andy Razaf was born in Washington DC, a member of the royal family of Madagascar: one source says his name was Andriamanantena Paul Rezafinkarefo, his father a nephew of Queen Ranavalona III. Andy became one of the most successful lyricists of his era. By the time he and Fats Waller co-wrote the black broadway show Hot Chocolates in 1929, Louis Armstrong singing "Ain't Misbehavin'" from the pit, he was at the top of his game. He and Waller wrote "Honeysuckle Rose", "Keepin' Out Of Mischief Now", "Blue, Turning Grey Over You", "The Joint Is Jumpin'", and more; in the early years, they would sell their lead sheets to as many publishers as they could, knowing that the publishers were cheats too. But Razaf also wrote with Eubie Blake ("You're Lucky To Me", "Memories Of You"), James P. Johnson ("A Porter's… show more.

This is a fun-filled mystery set in 1920s London. Cozies are not usually my thing, but I recently gave this a go as I am also writing a series in that exact time period and thought I’d see how Kinsey set about it. The historical beautifully captures the exuberance of the time period after World War I. Women have emerged from behind closed doors to interact on equal status as men, jazz music parades the pages with wild abandon, and the slang of the characters is spot on. The twists, turns, and action are blended in with the rich description to make this a delightful read.