The Jazz Theory Book Hardcover – June 1, 2005

I am very happy with the book and content:-) and the seller......... Years ago when I was in high school I wanted to play jazz piano but realized my music instructor was just milking it for every thing she could get and was extremely bored and she was really bad musically! I would just play anything not realizing that I was playing what they call free, no body realized was I was doing, it was a way of making music more interesting. The teach rather than admit she couldn't provide a jazz aproach dumped me saying that I was late after years of lessons and she had better things to do with her time. She created such a resentment I never touched the piano again, not to mention their were not any known instructors in my area at that time for jazz. But after 30yrs I picked out a alto sax Rampone &Cazzani silver, (get an anti tarnish clothe they use for covering sterling silverware and that will keep out the tranish, it is sold by yard in faberic stores) so, if you like silver horn thats the way to go. And so started pecking away at it, then truly realizing how awful an instructor I had, the more I started digging the more questions I had, and the first pages answered a lot of them from this Jazz Theory book. I also think any book should get reviews from not only masters but also the the novice because this is what the book is written for... This book is to give an understanding of all the scales and how the scale is derived etc...and what can be done with a scale. The only thing I think I retained from my past music intructor was how to read notes and then I had to write them in to jar my memory so they would become second nature to me. Now the real work begins, my hope is to get past the theory to create. And there is a jazz piano book theory written, so as I go through this book I may consider the piano againI had the cd rom for this theory book from pennylanemusicbooks, they are not nice...and have awful customer service I will never try to be a customer of them again.

Coming from a self-taught background and having played keyboard/synth in rock bands for the past 10 years, I thought I would revisit the study of 'piano' properly and with due diligence. There were obvious gaps in my theory and my technique had disintegrated over the years, so when researching a methodology for approaching the piano I came across Mark Levine's 'Jazz Theory' and found the Holy Grail. At the time I even contemplated ironing out my 'education' by enrolling in a Bachelor of Music, however when I saw the content of this book and the robust approach it takes I knew that my plan was to devour this book; study it, apply it, absorb it, but above all, practice, practice, practice. This book is virtually a Music degree in itself. With the advent of Youtube, I can check out each jazz standard example given, played by a multitude of brilliant musicians; this also helps with technique as I can watch the pianists hands/fingers to see what they’re up to. Overall, the deal is this, and I'm applying this to myself at the moment and have done for the last 12 months; if you follow this book, page by page, review periodically, practise your butt off (3 hrs daily minimum) transpose everything into every key, and basically, suck this book like a sponge, you'll be as good as any decent jazz piano major from any music college. Don't believe me? Prove it to yourself by doing the following:1. Get this book2. Study it3. Practise the examples in all keysYou'll then be able to see what the difference is in 12 months’ time; your jazz knowledge and technique will exponentiate and it will blow your socks off, including your fellow musicians in your band/trio/ensemble and you’ll be a well-rounded musician.

Fantastic book. Answered a lot of questions I had. It is better laid out in terms of sequence than the jazz piano book. The sequence oh this book introduces things more smoothly and in an integrated fashion. There is a lot of the same material as the jazz piano book but there is data in the jazz piano book which is not on thus one (more specific to pianists - like data on chord voicings) and there is data in this one on improvisation, repertoire and practise routines they is not in the piano book. When I went through this one several points about scales and modes I had misunderstood finally clicked.The great thing about these books is they don't oversell some "method" of "learning jazz quick" and they also do not over complicate things. The basic information is all there and after that it is just up to you to practice and explore and learn for yourself. Don't expect to read it cover to cover and be able to play jazz. It will be a matter of taking these principles and working on them in practice day after day. But I would say this is one of the best launching pads to take off from in terms of encompassing all the basics of Jazz.For the pianist, I would just buy both of his books and go through them in parallel or go through the chapters on scales and modes from this book first.

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This is one of the greatest theory books I have ever read. There is sooooo much to the book: you can read it cover to cover and I guarantee you will learn something you did not know. You can take a chapter and read it, review it, digest it, practice it, and I'm sure your improvisation and understanding of jazz will improve. You can grab the book and look up a specific topic to get answers when you need them. Whether as a teaching tool or a reference, the book is outstanding.Four stars instead of five because I have the Kindle version and no longer own a Kindle.