As a life-long semi-pro classical violinist, I find this book invaluable. Chris Haigh has done a masterful job of welcoming newcomers to the jazz world from the classical, without making the transition intimidating, or implying there's some unbridgeable gap full of mystique that only non-classical players can 'get'. And he does it all in an easy-going, simple way without talking down, inviting you to all the fun and challenge with easy, understandable steps which lure you ever on. And, before you know it -- as long as you practise, of course! -- you, too, are swinging. When I decided to branch out into more mainstream music as a way of falling in love with music all over again, I had a horror of sounding stiff and overly 'correct'; I wanted to find a way to sashay in that lovely, easy, relaxed way that, say, Grappelli had, or to sound excitingly edgy along the lines of Jean-Luc Ponti. Well, this book is helping me to achieve much of that. So, bravo, Chris Haigh, and many thanks! - from Carol, on Vancouver Island, B.C.
