I've written a book on Tal Farlow. It's primarily a biography which discusses his life, his music, and particularly his recordings. It's not an instruction book - for that I recommend Steve Rochinski's publication "The Jazz Style of Tal Farlow" - although it does discuss some of the technical aspects of Tal's playing.

The book is available from www.lulu.com via this link. If you click on the Preview button you can read some pages from the book which should give an idea of the content. I will be very happy to try to answer any questions if you send me an email at :-

The book is an A4 size paperback (approximately 8.3 in x 11.7 in or 21 cm x 29.7 cm) with 112 black and white pages inside a laminated full colour cover. The main body of the book is formatted as two columns of text using a clear 11 point font which is very legible. The appendices (Discography, Bibliography etc) follow a single column layout and are in a smaller 9 point font. The total number of words is a little over 50,000. The book does not have an ISBN and so cannot be ordered from a conventional bookshop.

If you are not familiar with Lulu, it is a "Print On Demand" publishing house. Print on Demand means that books are only printed as they are ordered - no stock is held. Additionally, a book order will normally be printed at the printing facility which is geographically nearest the delivery address which helps to keep postage costs down. For example, a UK customer's book will be printed in the UK and a US customer's book will be printed in the US. Modern digital printing equipment makes it perfectly cost effective to print single copies of books - something which would be quite uneconomic with the traditional printing process. This technology allows specialist books which are likely to have relatively low volume sales to be sold at a lower price than would be possible with a traditionally printed book. The quality of the printing and binding is very good - similar to that of a conventional paperback book.

Buying from Lulu is very similar to buying from many other major Internet vendors. On the first transaction you have to set up an account with a password - there's no charge or subscription whatsoever involved in becoming a Lulu member. You only have to pay anything when you order. You don't have to join just to browse. Payment is over a secure connection and can be by credit card or Paypal. I'm told that credit card payments get authorised much quicker but I haven't tried to pay with Paypal myself. You can pay in UK Pounds, US Dollars, or Euros. If you are security conscious you might wish to delete your credit card information from Lulu's server (there is a button for this) after ordering as by default it is retained (which of course saves the need to re-enter it on any subsequent order).

Once you've ordered (by credit card at least), your Order Status will show up as PAID. Within a relatively short time (typically less than 24 hours) this will change to FULFILLING. This means that Lulu has passed the order electronically to one of its print partners. The printer is responsible for both printing and dispatching the order directly to you at which point the status changes to DISPATCHED and you should get an email advising you of this.

The total time for all this to happen does seem to vary. In my experience, UK orders usually take between one week and two weeks from order to delivery, although early on I had one order which took almost three weeks. To avoid disappointment I would budget for the longer period and be pleased if it turns out to be quicker. I've less experience of US orders but these seem to take just over one week most of the time. The choice of delivery method is a factor here. For the UK, the EU Saver Promotion is the cheapest (for single books) and in my experience is perfectly adequate, delivering within 24 hours of dispatch (weekdays) and having a level of tracking capability online. The UK printer packages single books in a strong cardboard book mailer. In the US the cheapest option is Media Mail but this can be very slow and you might prefer to use the US Postal Priority service which uses USPS, takes around 2-3 business days depending on distance, and is trackable to an extent. For Canada you are probably best to use the Standard service which again uses USPS, as the more expensive Express service uses UPS and I have heard that this can incur significant brokerage charges across the US/Canadian border. There is more information to be found here.