The non-jazz improvisation series is a concept that germinated in Dick Weissman's mind while he was attending music school. He wrote a 15-piece arrangement of the old square dance tune Cripple Creek and wanted the trombone totake a solo as part of the arrangement. When the trombonist kept playing a bebop solo that was totally unsuitable for the chart Dick realized that - in addition to the many musicians who do not improvise - there are even jazzmusicians who don't know how to improvise outside the limits of their own stylistic backgrounds. This book approaches the five-string banjo as a musical instrument freed from the prison of specific musical genres. Old-timemusic clawhammer bluegrass and many eclectic adaptations of the banjo are utilized to demonstrate a variety of musical styles. A number of the selections are in different tunings. All examples are written out in traditional andtablature notation.
