Charlie Parker - Omnibook - For E-flat Instruments Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Just today when someone asked how they could learn to sight read Jazz music I answered "the Onmibook". This book is a transcription of 60 songs played by Charlie Parker (the saxophone pioneer of Bebop). Each song includes the main song melody (the head), Charlie Parker's recorded solos and the chord changes. The transcriptions are written in a style consistent with modern music arrangement that makes it easy for the musician to learn a variety of the most typical patterns found in Jazz, constantly revisted and augmented to allow for a landslide of appropraite variation. The book also has the chord changes written in for each measure (which is also written in a style consistent with modern jazz transcription) so any musician playing through the book can learn to understand why certain type of notes, melodies and memorized patterns work in a variety of situations.

Where Lennie Niehaus' "Concepts for Jazz" series is essential for all Jazz students, the Omnibook is essential for all Saxophonists of an intermediate level or higher and the use of the book will continually grow with the musician.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Charlie Parker - Omnibook - For E-flat Instruments

Product Description:
The Omnibook has become the book to turn to when you want to master the Bird. Includes 60 solos such as Anthropology * Au Privave (Nos. 1 and 2) * Billie's Bounce * Blues for Alice * Chi Chi * Confirmation * Constellation * Dewey Square * Donna Lee * Ko Ko * Moose the Mooch * Ornithology * Scrapple from the Apple * Shawnuff * Yardbird Suite * and more. Transcribed by Jamey Aebersold and Ken Slone. Spiral-bound, with chord symbols, metronome markings, record information, and practice suggestions.

Get 4% OFF

Want to read more honest consumer review about Charlie Parker - Omnibook - For E-flat Instruments now ?

Thelonious Monk for Guitar (Personality) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)No longer is the idiosyncratic style of Thelonious Monk inaccessible to the guitarist.
For the guitarist who has ever spent time listening to the genius of Monks music - feeling at the same time enlightened by it's wisdom, and saddened by the ever nagging feeling that you, as a guitarist, could not truly benefit, this book is the answer to your unspoken wish.
If you have a desire to go beyond the limitations of the instrument - which turn out to be false - and are looking for your own unique voice, this book can be part of that journey for you. Somebody has finally done it for us. Gary has put in much time and effort, and he has found all the essential notes - those required to express Monk's style, and he's figured out how to put them on the fretboard. Every measure brings awe and surprise to the player. You won't believe that the sounds are coming from your guitar!
The book is well written, and each piece is a distillation of the essentials from numerous recordings. Gary Wittner has an encyclopedic knowledge of Monk's music, which is apparent in this book. There are extensive performance notes for each piece, some detailing almost every measure. These are essential, as they point out points that may not be obvious to you on first or even subsequent reading. For example, the duration of certain notes are very important to bring out the melody which is sometimes "hidden" in the chord voicings. The chord names are included at each measure. Fingerings are included when necessary, and everything is in TAB as well as standard notation. It couldn't be clearer.
It's not an easy journey - Monks' wasn't, and I don't imagine Gary's was either, but when you begin to work through the material you will start to see the connections. You'll start learning that wisdom that Monk was trying to pass on to us. It was meant for all of us.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Thelonious Monk for Guitar (Personality)

Product Description:
Explore the songs of one of the greatest jazz composers with this collection of 11 solo guitar arrangements in standard notation and tab. Songs: Bemsha Swing * Blue Monk * Little Rootie Tootie * Monk's Dream * Nutty * Played Twice * Reflections * Round Midnight * Ruby, My Dear * Ugly Beauty * We See. Includes in-depth performance notes, an introduction, and a discography.

Get 32% OFF

Want to read more honest consumer review about Thelonious Monk for Guitar (Personality) now ?

Four Lives in the Bebop Business Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Spellman, a lucid analyst of the avant garde jazz movement in the '60s (see his liner notes, for example, on the original release of Coltrane's "Ascension"), has contributed with this book four compellingportraits of musicians who gave and have given their lives tojazz.
"Four Lives in the Bebop Business" profiles two altoists,Jackie McLean and Ornette Coleman; and two pianists, Cecil Taylor andHerbie Nichols. Spellman skillfully crafts the narratives, while wiselyallowing his subjects to tell large chunks of their stories in their ownwords.
It becomes clear as one reads the book that it took a lot of gutsto be a jazz musician during the '50s and '60s (and still does). All fourof the musicians faced major obstacles in pursuing their art.
McLean,who enjoyed the greatest amount of commercial success of the four,especially early on, battled drug addiction. Taylor and Coleman faced openhostility because of their challenging, groundbreaking approaches toplaying their instruments. Nichols (the only one of the four who is notstill alive) was just plain ignored, despite his brilliantly originalplaying (check out the two-disk Blue Note compilation of his music), andspent much of his all-too-brief career playing in Greenwich Villagedives.
In spite of bad accommodations, poor pay, public indifference,critical hostility and difficulty finding gigs, these artists, the bookmakes clear, would never play anything other than jazz. In this sense, thebook has an underlying inspirational message. Still, it remains for Americato fully embrace its only true indigenous art form, something which to thisday has not occurred.
The book also offers insights from the musicians onthe creative process and about the historic changes in jazz that occurredduring the '60s, from the perspective of men who were on the front lines ofthe battles between critics, musicians, and the listening public.
Required reading for the serious jazz listener.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Four Lives in the Bebop Business

Product Description:
This book offers biographical sketches and quotations from four black musicians: Herbie Nichols, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Jackie McLean. Photographs.

Get 15% OFF

Want to read more honest consumer review about Four Lives in the Bebop Business now ?

How to Play Bebop - Volume 3 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I find some of Baker's works brilliant and others terrible. His "How To Play Bebop" series fits in the brilliant category and you really should get all three. Volume 1 is the most essential of the series, then volume 3, and lastly volume 2.

Baker is usually credited with inventing the term "bebop scale". In volume 1 of the series he describes the bebop dominant and major scales scales are and also gives you some rules for using the scales to construct bebop lines. Some of this is quite technical and may put some readers off, but if you play through the examples and use your ears you will soon catch on.

The basic idea is to add chromatic passing notes in the right places so that the your lines contain chord tones on strong beats.

He also shows techniqes for extending and connecting bop lines and provides some of his famous perpetual motion exercises to work on. There's a lot to keep you busy in this book.

It is often difficult for the beginning jazz student to know how to go from scales to improvisation. This book gives you something concrete to work with. It is a bit bewildering at first, but if you give it time to sink in you will find that you will be able to internalize the many rules and create long and sophisticated improvised bop lines. (Note this book is aimed at creating single-note lines only and does not cover chord voicings or comping).

A slightly more modern treatment of this subject can be found in volume 3 of Bergonzi's opus Inside Improvisation for All Instruments 7 Volume Set By Jerry Bergonzi (volumes 1-7), but I prefer Baker's book - it's the original and best.

Volume 2 of the "How To Play Bebop" series is a compilation of patterns to play over particular chord progressions (ii-V-I, turnarounds etc). As such this book is purely for vocabulary once you already have gained a grounding in the structure of the bebop language from volume 1.

I find the best way to approach this book is to play through a few of the patterns until you find one that appeals to your ears and then work it out in all keys around the cycle. You can also try modifying it to fit other types of chords by raising or lowering a third or fifth etc. where appropriate. It's also good to connect a few patterns and create a line that runs over the changes of an entire tune.

This book has little in the way of text and is essentially just musical examples. It is up to you to work out the best way to use it. In the context of the series it is a very useful book, but it's probably not quite so good to have in isolation. It's still well worth having though and the patterns themselves are very tasty.

Volume 3 is about how to learn and internalise tunes. This is a book that is useful in a broader sense than just the bebop genre. He covers techniques such as creating guide tone lines, playing chord tones, learning contrafacts, and more.

With the steps written out in detail for several examples, he explains the steps you should go through to learn a new tune. By learning and internalising the tune he means really knowing the melody and chord changes intimately and being able to improvise over it fluently. You can save a lot of effort by realising that many jazz tunes are contrafacts or partial contrafacts and Baker gives many examples of these. A contrafact is a tune with a different melody but the same chord changes. For example there are many, many songs based on the blues form, and nearly as many based on the changes to "I've Got Rhythm". There are many others. For example the tune "Ornithology" is based on the changes from "How High The Moon", "Groovin High" is based on the changes from "Whispering" and "Hot House" is based on the changes from "What Is This Thing Called Love?". Other changes are partial contrafacts which might contain sections with shared changes (e.g. "Take The A Train" and "The Girl From Ipanema").

This is an excellent series for anyone who wants to play jazz.

Click Here to see more reviews about: How to Play Bebop - Volume 3

Product Description:
A three-volume series that includes the scales, chords and modes necessary to play bebop music. A great introduction to a style that is most influential in today's music. The first volume includes scales, chords and modes most commonly used in bebop and other musical styles. The second volume covers the bebop language, patterns, formulas and other linking exercises necessary to play bebop music. A great introduction to a style that is most influential in today's music.

Get 20% OFF

Want to read more honest consumer review about How to Play Bebop - Volume 3 now ?

Art of the Shuffle (Guitar Educational) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The Art of Shuffle by Dave Rubins is the best book on the subject I have ever come across and is a sheer delight for teachers and students alike.It realistically defines an area of study and then simply and clearlydelivers all that the printed page can.Where the printed page falls off,the information is then supported by a CD that is divided into individualtracks foreasy-find student repetition.At first the student will usethese tracks to understand what is being rhythmically and musically saidthen, later on, it is just good jam tracks to enjoy and keep your memoryand chops together.I particularly appreciate the divided tracks (thisshould be an industry standard) so you can skip over the tuning section orany part you're not focussing on instead of having to listen to the wholeCD in order to get to a specific section.I give this effort eleven stars( a perfect ten...plus) and I sincerely hope this author will do it again;I'd love to have one on turnarounds and as many other aspect of the bluesas any series could ever hold. This author makes the art of shuffle simplyirresitable.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Art of the Shuffle (Guitar Educational)

Product Description:
Art Of The Shuffle This method book explores shuffle, boogie and swing rhythms for guitar. Includes tab and notation, and covers Delta, country, Chicago, Kansas City, Texas, New Orleans, West Coast, and bebop blues. Also includes audio for demonstration of each style and to jam along with.

Get 32% OFF

Want to read more honest consumer review about Art of the Shuffle (Guitar Educational) now ?

The Art of Jazz Trumpet Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The Art of Jazz Trumpet is by far the best book on the subject I have seento date. The exercises sound incredibly hip and were challenging to play.The ideas for playing over chord changes have totally changed my conceptionof the horn. The history of trumpet is also fascinating, and McNeil's takeon influences is truly unique. I highly recommend this book.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Art of Jazz Trumpet

Product Description:
A comprehensive study of modern jazz trumpet playing by renowned jazz musician John McNeil. Contains a personal history of jazz trumpet, articulation, valve technique, and alternate fingerings. This complete edition combines and updates the earlier works and includes a CD as a practice aid.

Get 15% OFF

Want to read more honest consumer review about The Art of Jazz Trumpet now ?