Product Description
For Introduction to Jazz courses. Jazz: An American Journey places jazz music within its rich historical and cultural context. The book explains how and why jazz evolved as it did, as it emphasizes chronology, historical cause and effect, and the interactions between music and American history and culture. Presented from the point of view of the original participants (musicians, critics and audiences), the book focuses on the music with fifty-five recorded examples that are accompanied by a listening chart, commentary and analysis, all to provide a more vivid setting for jazz grounded in the time, place and worldview of its creators. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

What happened to the CD?
I was under the impression (from the detailed ad) when I ordered this textbook for my daughter that the CD was included. In fact, I made sure of it because the class would be difficult for her otherwise. But, no CD came with the book. My daughter was forced to rely on a classmate to burn a copy for her. ... Read more

Product Description
Endorsed by Jamey Aebersold, James Moody, Dave Liebman, and others, The Jazz Theory Book presents all the information any student of jazz needs in an easy-to-understand, yet thorough, manner. For intermediate to advanced players, and written by one of the acknowledged masters of jazz, it is used by universities around the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (62)

A "Must Have" for your Jazz Shelf
This is the book I wish I had a long time ago. The author knows his stuff and dissects jazz in a meaningful way. Each theoretical idea is accompanied by a four bar example which will probably take you through the entire lexicon of jazz by the time you're finished. It is not bed time reading - by any means. You have to bring to the book what you already know and build on it.

Another note: The book is spiral bound, so you can prop it up on your piano, or fold it back and it doesn't fold up and fall off. I know that's a little thing... but think of some of the other books you bought and you'll know what I mean.

practical and accessible
I had to purchase this book for a Jazz Theory & Analysis course.Usually I sell my text books back but this will be one I keep.Mark Levine lays things out in a very practical and accessible way.He includes multiple song examples for each point.If you are wanting to learn how to play Jazz better or understand how it works this is a great book

90% duplication of Mark Levine's other Jazz book
I am writing this review to point out that Mark Levine publishes TWO Jazz theory books " The Jazz Theory Book (1995)" and "The Jazz Piano Book (1989)." Amazon shows incorrect dates for these books. I purchased both here on Amazon. To my suprise, the two books are virtually the same with frequent identical paragraphs of text, illustrations, chapters, etc. Jazz Theory Book is essentially an update version of Jazz Piano Book. Both are superior well written music theory works but it is not necessary to own both.Either one of them is a must have for any aspiring Jazz pianist or theory hound. I am keeping the Jazz Theory Book since it is newer.I feel that Amazon or someone should point this 'duplication' out.

A remarkable achievement
I'm primarily a guitarist, I learned to play blues by ear many years ago. But, as I grew more interested in playing jazz, it became clear that there were gaps in my knowledge that I wasn't going to get around by relying on my ear. This book has done an excellent job addressing those gaps.

It was not an easy book to get through. I don't have easy access to a piano, so playing many of the examples on the guitar didn't get the point across completely. Also, piano voicings and guitar voicings aren't ever going to match up completely. But, it was still a valuable experience. At some point I would like to go through the book again with a piano in front of me. In fact, I didn't absorb everything the first time through, I will no doubt read the book again anyway to pick up some of the loose ends.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the section on blues scales, things that I was familiar with. He was able to tie my understanding of the blues to a better understanding of jazz. I think I'll be a better blues player because of it.

I don't read standard music notation very well. I've seen some reviews where the use of standard notation was said to be a shortcoming of the book. I disagree. If you want to play jazz, learn to read music.

It's a challenging read, but worth all of the effort that I put into it. I expect it to also act as a long-term reference. If anything ever happens to it, I'll buy another copy.

excellent reference
The Jazz Theory Book is a excellent reference book.I was told by a few great guitarist that I should purchase the book if I want the complete information about Jazz.They were correct about the book. ... Read more

Product Description
This comprehensive 4-CD set features 75 worksrecorded from 1916 to the present. Carefullyselected by Giddins and DeVeaux and produced bySony with attention to top quality audio, theserecordings of both landmark works and innovative departures from the standard canon showcase thebreadth and scope of jazz. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

THOUGHTFUL AND WELL NEEDED
Jazz scholar Scott DeVeaux and premiere jazz critic Gary Giddins (The Village Voice) compiled this four-CD collection to accompany their advanced level jazz primer, Jazz (2009). At $60.07 from Amazon.com, it's pricey but worth it for the serious jazz listener or student of jazz.I could cavil at some of the choices they made: I would have preferred less pop jazz, for instance. (Nothing against Sinatra or Getz and Byrd's "Samba Dees Days," for instance, but there are other pieces and other musicians I'd like to hear. And while Horace Silver's hard bop quintet deserves to be spotlighted, so do Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers: what about the 1958 quintet -Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, Bobby Timmons, etc., what a group!--doing "Moanin'"?) In some cases, I would have preferred different selections by the musicians or different groups being spotlighted. From the twenties, I'd like to have heard one of violinist Joe Venuti and guitarist Eddie Lang's hot jazz groups from Chicago, or maybe Adrian Rollini. And there is a great 30s pickup group with trombonist Jack Teagarden and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster. (The same album has another group with clarinetist Peewee Russell playing with James P. Johnson on piano and Zutty Singleton on drums!) On the modern end, I missed hearing a cut by Roscoe Mitchell or the full Art Ensemble of Chicago, ditto the World Saxophone Quartet or ROVA. The jazz-fusion group Weather Report was good, but I feel that John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra blew them out of the water when they were hitting it. But this is small potatoes for a collection that is both generally representative and singularly informative.

Most of the cuts on the first CD are stunning: Ghanaian drummers, a black Baptist or Pentecostal choir, killer guitar and vocal by oldtime bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell, a piece by ragtime's little know clarinet virtuoso Henry Sweetman, great King Oliver and Louis, and Louis on his own and with Earl Fatha Hines.The second CD, which takes the music up through the 30s, is equally good.Hell, it's all good!

Each of the selections is pegged off an analysis of the performance in DeVeaux's and Giddin's book. The analyses are not uniform in quality -some seem close to trivial--but over all, reading along in the text while listening to the musical cuts will teach the reader/listener a great deal. Hurrah for you, Scott and Gary! Something like this has been needed for a long time.

A continuation of Gunther Schulller's work
I've always been disappointed that Gunther Schuller never extended his series of excellent works analyzing jazz history: "Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development" (first edition 1968, 400+ pages) and more than 20 years later "The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945" (1991, 940 pages). These seminal works go into extensive detail with plenty of musical notation to illustrate points yet they have appeal at all levels. I desperately wanted him to move on to my favorite periods, all after 1945. But this hasn't happened yet, and I suspect it may not.

Now Giddens and Deveaus have done so. True, their analysis is not as detailed as Schuller's, but they're covering a lot more territory. Besides, such a book would be thousands of pages long. They found the right level of depth for this treatment at this length.

I've been listening to (and reading about) jazz for 40 years, and this is the best overview covering all the periods that I've ever seen. I learned lots of interesting things, and it will help anyone except probably a professional jazz musician to put all the pieces and trends into perspective.

The use of technology with the downloadable applet from the book publisher (no charge) that works with the related series of CDs is also quite interesting. It's nice to have the screen pop up with an explanation of what's happening just as it is happening so you don't have to constantly refer to the book to get the description or compare the minute:second in the book with what's on your file player.

Given this, I do recommend also purchasing the CD set. No, it's not cheap, and you could probably find most of the cuts somewhere else -- but it would take a great deal of effort (something I had to do as far as I could with the Schuller books). And while the CD set contains a large number of songs I already have in my collection, I would miss not having those few that he also describes. Besides, the cuts on the CD are designed to interface directly to the free applet.

Summary: The book/CD set is one of the best jazz investments I've ever made. It has brought me immense enjoyment, and it's something I know I'll go back to again and again. I suspect this will become the standard resource of jazz history for many years to come. ... Read more

Product Description
Jazz fans get the inside story of New York's legendary club. At age 83, Lorraine Gordon is a jazz icon who has lived more than a few lives: downtown bohemian, uptown grande dame, music business pioneer, wife, lover, mother, and finally - at a point when most women her age were just settling into grandmotherhood - owner of the most famous jazz club in the world, the Village Vanguard. The trajectory of her journey has been remarkable. The details are a Jackson Pollock-like swirl of fierce colors shot through with larger-than-life creative figures: not just jazz figures but luminaries from every point on the political, social and entertainment spectrum: from Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk to Lenny Bruce, Norman Mailer and Barbra Streisand. * The legendary Village Vanguard has been an international jazz mecca since 1935. According to New York Magazine, "A musician hasn't truly arrived in the jazz world until he's played at the 'Carnegie Hall of Cool,' the Village Vanguard." * There have been over 100 "Live at the Village Vanguard" recordings by premier artists from John Coltrane to Wynton Marsalis. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A Jazz Fan's Bible
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/ROTRT9HZ1VA3D

A 'must' for any avid jazz fan who relishes a 'you are there' experiential survey.
Alive at the Village Vanguard: My Life In and Out of Jazz Time captures the life of jazz artist Lorraine Gordon, who knew virtually all the big names of jazz. She was not only a business woman and mother, but owned the most famous jazz club in the world, the Village Vanguard: this is the story of the rise of that club, her encounters with Miles Davis, Monk, and more, and vignettes of their personalities and encounters. Black and white photos blend with music history and cultural insights to make for a lively survey of the Village scene and the artists who made up the jazz world. A 'must' for any avid jazz fan who relishes a 'you are there' experiential survey.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Alive at the Village Vanguard
Very interesting and informative.An honest woman, dedicated to jazz and jazz musicians.

Mildly interesting from a history of jazz/ philosophy of jazz point of view
Lorraine Gordon has led an interesting life and one well worth reporting.She does an admirable job in this autobiography.If, however, one seeks information about jazz events that occurred at her club in any sort of detail, one needs to look elsewhere.

Wonderful read
This book is a wonderful read for any jazz fan!It goes through the life of Larraine Gordon and has some wonderful insights as to why the Village Vanguard is what it is!It's an easy read and I highly recommend this book! ... Read more

Product Description
Vinyl mania: Jazz LP covers from the 1940s to 1990s Just like the title promises, this volume contains 1000 jazz record covers, from the 1940s through the decline of LP production in the early 1990s. Each cover is accompanied by with a fact sheet listing name, art director, photographer, illustrator, year, label, and more. Special features for jazz lovers include: --Interviews with the following jazz personalities: - Rudy Van Gelder: legendary sound engineer that recorded for many labels such as Blue Note, Impulse, and Prestige. He was the first sound engineer to have his name credited on the cover of a record. - Creed Taylor: founder of many labels and one of the best jazz producers ever, credited also for bringing bossa nova to the US and fusing it with jazz. - Michael Cuscuna: big jazz producer at Blue Note and a detective in the label's catalogue, being responsible for its most successful re-editions. - Bob Ciano: designer at the CTI Label, founded in the 70s by Creed Taylor, and one of the greatest cover designers ever. - Ashley Kahn: writer, critic, and journalist for jazz. Books include A Love Supreme, A Kind of Blue, and The House that Trane Built. -- A top-15 favorite records list by top jazz DJs Michael Reinboth, Michael MacFadin, Russ Dewburry, Patric Forge, and Gerald Short. The editor: Julius Wiedemann was born and raised in Brazil. After studying graphic design and marketing, he moved to Japan, where he worked in Tokyo as art editor for digital and design magazines. Since joining TASCHEN in Cologne, he has been building up TASCHEN's digital and media collection with titles such as Animation Now!, and TASCHEN's 1000 Favorite Websites. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

GROOVESVILLE BABY!
GREAT FOR A VINTAGE JAZZ LP COLLECTOR, such as myself, found titles from this book I recently bought and added to my collection! A good book for all the Groovy Cats out there! ...Peace.

Vinyl junkies look no further!
I'm a collector of music related books. I had been looking for a book on jazz record covers and wasn't having much luck until I found this gem! I love this book so if u like me are a vinyl junkie then look no further for a great coffe table book to kick back and enjoy.

The book is good!
The book is good!
Excellent quality of the press, cover with circle cutting down on the middle - is very original.
This book will approach for graphic designers and for fans of jazz music.

Printed sound
A welcome addition to books about jazz covers.Originally Taschen called it '1000 Jazz Covers' but it seems to have settled down at 650 or so arranged alphabetically.Because the covers start at the early days of the LP and run into the nineties the range of graphic styles is predictably wide.I tend to think the greatest designs were in the fifties and early sixties before jazz, like other musical styles issued on LP, merged with different musical genres.

The greats I remember from this period include labels like Pacific Jazz, with designers Bill Claxton and Woody Woodward, Contemporary Records with Bob Guidi, Norman Grantz labels with the great David Stone Martin and perhaps the ultimate cover extravaganza: Blue Note and the hundreds of stunning covers designed by Reid Miles.These designers issued their best work by the mid-sixties and I think it shows.So many covers from then onwards tend to reflect contemporary graphic styles of the day because they were appealing to a wider audience.Perhaps the only label that issued consistently stylish covers into the nineties was Creed Taylor's CTI featuring the vibrant photography of Pete Turner.

Fortunately most of the covers in the book are from decades past and as such it is very comparable to Naoki Mukoda's beautifulJazzical Moods: Artwork of Excellent Jazz Labels published in 1993. Of the two books I prefer Mukoda's version.I think it is stronger editorially with better chapter sequencing for the 625 covers and nicely, that includes some examples of their backs.

The production of Jazz Covers is presentable (175 screen on good paper) though the back cover says each LP is fully credited but it really only applies to covers issued by major jazz labels.The front of the book has some interesting Q&A from six professions who made LP jazz happen in the past but all the text, rather annoyingly, is reversed out of black making it not the most readable copy and this also applies to some pages at the back where twelve jazz DJs reveal their top LPs but the text is printed in a circular form.It looks a neat design idea but again, it's not too readable.

The book is certainly worth adding to the rather small number of books about jazz LP covers and apart from the Mukoda title I've mentioned check out the work of Graham Marsh and his two-volume Blue Note collection; East Coasting: Cover Art of Prestige, Atlantic Riverside Records and California Cool: West Coast Cover Art.All of these are LP sized books and are packed with quality covers from the past.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

Jazz Covers
A very substantial book published by Taschen Books,who continually publish high quality books.Approximately 490 pages of text(minimal)and album reproductions,which are of high quality.There are short essays by a number of people,including Rudy Van Gelder,Ashley Kahn,and Creed Taylor,which add to the quality of the book.For anyone who loves jazz and the "album period",this is a real find.Some reproductions take up a full page while others are reduced in size to accomodate two or three to a page.Next to the photos is a bit of information about the covers and the people who created them.Occasionally there are quotes pertaining to particular covers.

The time period ranges from the 1940's to the 1990's.The covers are not arranged in chronological order,but alphabetically by artist,and that's alright.There are well known covers and rarities that most people have not seen.It's the album art which takes center stage here and it's fun and informative to either read cover to cover or to just browse through.While it's a bit expensive,the quality speaks for itself.If album cover art from many of the greatest jazz musicians is something you enjoy,this is a book you will come back to again and again. ... Read more

Product Description
Now updated for a new generation of swing enthusiasts, reissued to coincide with the release of "The World of Swing" CD from Columbia/LegacyThis monumental history of big band jazz, documented through interviews with forty leading musicians, has been updated with a new introduction and discography by Dan Morgenstern. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An essential work --"I would rather be dead" than not swing!
The people interviewed in this book are leading Swing musicans. They may not be well-known to the neo-swingsters, or those whose idea of swing is big band white swing groups that were essentially pop oriented parasites on Black music, nor are post swing proto rock and rollers misidentified with Swing like Louis Jordan or Louis Prima featured.

However, if you interested in serious swing musicians who were at the center of the jazz swing music, African American pioneers, and jazz oriented white musicians this is your book.

Dance is a great interviewer here and in his other world of books. He gets behind the common places to points that MUSICIANS really want to know about the player's experience.

An example is the interview he did with Elmer Snowden in which a dying Snowden allows him to use his secret that he used guitar strings on his banjo is precisely for those of us who recognize Snowden as a major Jazz banjoist, a major band leader, a senior stateman of Jazz, even though he may remain unknown among white yuppie swing wannabes (or has another fad captivated these know-nothings?).

Dance also interviews enough of the great arrangers--a group neglected by everyone except musicians and serious swing fans--that we get a pictures of their contributions.

This book is not narrow. There are lots of connections from the Swing world of the 30s and 40s back to earlier forms of Jazz and forward to bop, R & B, and even rock and roll here.

My favorite part of the book is where he takes a poll of all his interviewees. My favorite part is where the musicians are asked what they would do if they were not musician. We see a bunch of interesting alternatives that help you gauge the personality and background with their alternatives.My favorite is the player--I will let you discover who he is--who says "I would rather be dead" than not play music!I've used that as a watchword not only for music but for the better things in life morally, artistically, and every other way.

Some pretty obscure folks???
Now when I ordered this book I was under the assumption it would be about Big Bands and Swing (isn't that pretty much the title?).Now when most people think of Big Bands they think of Miller, Dorsey, Shaw, Herman, Thornhill, or even famous sidemen from these bands such as Conrad Gozzo for example. But this book is filled with some pretty obscure folks, ie: Lawrence Lucie,Billy Mackel,Eddie Locke and of course famous ones that you'll recognize such as Erskine Hawkins, Cozy Cole, Chick Webb etc..but for those fans thinking it will be about possibly there favorite band leader or about the music that was played or by who they will be sadly mistaken. Not that the book is un -interesting, it's just not what I was expecting when I ordered it. So buyer beware ..... ... Read more

Product Description
This is a brilliant and schematic history of two important aspects of jazz. Contents include fingered bass lines and solos for dozens of well-known tunes from every period. Twenty-nine pieces, from Bessie Smith to Miles Davis. ... Read more

Product Description
Jazz-Fusion is a book that describes and explains the changes that took place when jazz was blended with rock, folk, blues, soul, country and classical music. It's about a kind of music that has always been controversial but has now been mostly absorbed into the mainstream of popular music. After a brief outline of the history of jazz, Ken Trethewey describes the events that rocked the music world of the 1950s and 60s. He describes the processes by which the established style of jazz was broadened. Finally, he reviews the major contributors to jazz-fusion and provides an outline to some of the best music of its kind. The book is written at a basic level and so a glossary of relevant musical terms is provided. There is also an extensive discography and index.

This book is the introductory volume in a series that describes in more detail the work of musicians such as Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul, Pat Metheny, the Brecker Brothers and many others. ... Read more

Product Description
Jazz is now 100 years old, a venerable American institution predicated on the unpredictable. But recent signs-ranging from Ken Burns's documentary Jazz: A History of America's Music to the dominance, in terms of sales, of reissues over new recordings-have made many question whether jazz's past has now become more important than its future, or whether jazz has any future at all. In this book, composed entirely via e-mail, 10 leading jazz critics take on the various issues surrounding jazz's future-the dominance of mainstream jazz, its spread around the world, the difficulty of making a living playing it, the growth of repertory jazz, the dearth of interest among young African Americans, the paradoxically backward-looking nature of the avant-garde, and many others. Their conclusions are as surprising, witty, and edgy as the music itself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Useful Discourse
I like the way this book is set out...almost informally with reviewers commenting on a topic and then passing it on to the next.I think this is an indispensable addition to any jazz aficionado'slibrary.Yes it is now 5 years old but it provides an erudite snapshot of the state of Jazz in the early 21st Century and is a great starting point for further discussion and study. ... Read more

Product Description
The essential guide to recorded jazz, now in its ninth edition

Firmly established as the world’s leading guide to jazz, this celebrated reference book is a mine of fascinating information and insightful—often wittily trenchant—criticism. For this completely revised edition, Richard Cook and Brian Morton have reassessed each artist’s entry and updated the text to incorporate thousands of additional CDs and artists. The result is an endlessly browsable companion for jazz aficionados and novices alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (31)

This is not a real review; just a suggestion
I gave the book 5 stars. Is there anything better on paper? If yes, please let me know.
My only complain/recommendation to publisher is: Please give us downloadable index to the book. The index is already available on Amazon and guys smarter than me can download it anyway.

JAZZ KNOWLEDGE YES!LABEL INFO NO!
Anyone who is a serious collector of Jazz on CD knows about those "public domain" import reissues which have been released all over the EU in recent years.Some are wonderful,informed,intelligent remasters of classic and obscure jazz performances which the collector loves to lay his or her hands on.There are also crap reissues of Jazz clearly issued to pick up a quick Euro or two.There are individual CDs and sets: some good, some bad.All the tracks on these resissues have fallen out of copyright in the EU.In others words, the recordings are over 50 years old.We do not have this loophole in the sound copyright laws here in the US.So it is very exciting to lay your hands on some favorite obscure recording on an import CD that you used to have on an old 78 or LP or have recordings from several different labels all on the same CD or in a box set.(Soon the public domain copyright law loophole in the EU is changing to allow only recordings 70 years old to be issued legally.)
The reason for this introduction about import Public Domain reissues on CD is this:
When one is reading this latest edition of The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings it is informative to see the reviews of all these PD reissues that are available in the UK and Europe.However, here in the US these titles are not readily available unless you track them down as imports on Amazon.I for one would like to see reviews of "legitimate" label CD reissues which are available worldwide from the original record companies.These releases are many times totally ignored by the writers and reviewers in this publication.This is a major problem for me which is why I no longer purchase the new editions this guide any longer.

REALLY A GREAT BOOK, BUT FELA KUTI IS MISSING. WHY?
This is really a great book for people who wants to start to know jazz music. This is the best starting point. But - why Fela Anikulapo Kuti and some other foreign great jazz players are missing (for example, another one: Tenorinho/Tenorio Jr)? Someone could say - Fela Anikulapo Kuti doesn't play jazz, he's playing Afrobeat. Are Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever really playing jazz music? They are included in this book because their genre is "fusion", and some members of these bands are very famous (and American), but which is one of the best "fusion" music ever? Afrobeat. And - like Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock - Fela Anikulapo Kuti started as traditional jazz player (see "L. A. Sessions" or "Koola Lobitos") to evolve then in a fusion player, giving a new name ("Afrobeat") to his music just to highlight his african roots. Even Ginger Baker is inside this book. He's a rock drummer (not jazz) and even he worked in at least five Fela Kuti albums (but he is here, while Fela Kuti isn't). So - in my opinion - the authors can't cancel (as they do) one of the greatest keyboardists ever (Fela Anikulapo Kuti), one of the greatest jazz drummers ever (Tony Allen), as well as a trumpet player like Babatunde Williams. When the authors will put these jazz musicians on these pages this book will be 5/5.

out of print music not reviewed.
Ever heard of the secondary market? used shops , thrift stores, people trade music all the time, almost half of my 3000 cd collection has been obtained through these means, yet because bluenote for instance lets a jackie mclean cd go put of print, they dont review it. i just dont understand the logic. ill just stick with google, then i can have more than enough info. if you can find this at your library , check it out before you buy.what about download only jazz reissues? verve does this as of this post.

Beg to differ
OK, I'll be the voice of dissent.Bear with me: I've been a dedicated jazzhead for 20+ years and have bought an ungodly number of CDs based on word-of-mouth, industry buzz and personal encounters.Today was the first time I've ever looked to the Penguin Jazz Guide for shopping advice.(I found a rare Bobby Hutcherson CD at Amoeba and consulted the store's 2008 Penguin Guide to determine the lineup.)Well, they didn't include it. So be it.

But then I started thumbing through it, looking up some of my recent favorites.Morton and Cook's smug, dismissive, snarky, often hostile reviews were appalling.Who are these guys and what are their musical credentials?If I'd been taking their advice these last twenty years, I would never have heard some of the best new jazz that's out there.(Kurt Rosenwinkel is "boring"?Please, that's as tonedeaf a statement as I've ever heard.)This guide does a tremendous disservice to jazz if it's dissuading buyers from taking chances on new artists.I'd advise jazz enthusiasts to trust their own ears, not the taste of these twits.

This "guide" is to jazz as "toilet paper" is to bathroom reading. ... Read more

Product Description
Here are graded études and progressive exercises for developing strength, facility, and necessary techniques in jazz piano styles. Included are elements of jazz harmony, chromatic alterations, voicing, swing, bebop, and a chord symbol appendix. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Of limited use
If you have no other Jazz sheet music this is worth buying at the right price. It covers the basic harmony you need to know and it covers some of the more common Jazz styles such as block chord, stride etc. However it is noteably poor in its discussion of improvisation. There is none! Thats pretty poor for a book on Jazz.

It also only only covers 'modern voicings' and 'scales and modes' in the last few pages of the book. This book was published in 1980 originally, and what in the authors eyes might have been seen as minority stylings then, are now the standard way modern Jazz Pianists play. BTW I'm not running down old-style Jazz Piano - I love stride Piano. But the truth these days is that most Jazz Pianists now continue in the tradition of Bill Evans/Keith Jarrett/Herbie Hancock etc.

I could certainly recommend this to a relative beginner, but for the more experienced musician there are many more interesting and informative books to get.

Not the best and not a Hanon type of book
This is not a bad book, there are some good exercises, not all of them but there are few useful ones. But it should be said that the title offers something the book is not exactly. Yes, the book is a Book on Technique, with etudes and exercises on specific technical aspects, but it is not conceived as a Hanon type (which, in my opinion is not necessarily a bad thing). The problem with this book is that even though it is not a bad book, there are other books with better exercises, a more progressive selection of material and in some cases with a greater develop and explanations about the concepts to work at and its applications. If you are looking for a modern Hannon on Jazz try the other Jazz Hannon by Petter Deneff (more on the Hannon style: repetitive patterns, but less musical examples than this one), but even better try Oscar Peterson's book on jazz etudes or Dan Haerle's books. Finally, for more than a book on technique I will also recommend the Alfred's Jazz Keyboards Series.

Complete jazz exercise lacks rhythm application
This was probably my first jazz piano book when I first bought it 6 years ago. Honestly, it did not teach me much about jazz but the exercise help me a lot in term of playing major 7th and minor 7th chords at that time. The book did not emphasis much about rhythm, as many jazz pianist would tell you a big difference between classical and jazz music is the rhythm. A swing feel is not easily explained to many traditional classical pianist. This book did not dwell on that at all. However, after knowing what a swing feel is, this book would be a practical exercise book. I would suggest to play the example in the book with a swing feel instead of a steady rhythm like written. Honestly it is a breakthrough once I understand to apply the exercise in jazz rhythm.
The book is very useful in explaning the many sub-genres of jazz. You will know what a bebop, a walking bass, a swing base, and others after going through the exercise. You will also be able to create opened and closed voicing after this. It does take an intermediate jazz pianist to understand the application process of this exercise.

good
it's a good book for those who want to learn the basics of the Jazz Music.

The Hanon are great exercises
The Hanon are great exercises, but it's important to do a variety of exercises. Going through 50 Hanon Exercises each day may be a little overkill and somewhat unbalanced, especially if you're playing them all at the same tempo.

I couldn't play at all unless I warmed up for 45 minutes. What I learned was, in addition to "exercises" it's important to play some tunes...

Try some of these:
-Hanon 1st exercise, all keys quarter note 100
-All Major scales, 4 octaves, various tempi

-Apreggios - same
-Pick one or two a day of the following:
Brahms 51 exercises
Pischna
Schmitt Preparatory Exercises
Bach Two Part Inventions
Chopin Etudes, Waltzes (anything really)
Scott Joplin rags
Blues - in various keys
Tunes you'd play on gigs in different keys each day

just mix it up and don't spend more time on exercises than you do playing tunes. ... Read more