Any Genuinely Great Jazz Learning Book You Stand Behind?

[James W]

I think it confuses the bejeezus out of people. There’s much in it that’s good and worth knowing, but
- it really isn’t a how to jazz book that a lot of people seem to take it for and
- it makes a lot of (often contradictory or waked back) statements as gospel truth that I find completely unsupported within the music.
- the historical info in it is largely wrong

I must have forgotten that it contained any historical info...

As a representation of the soloing and voicing approaches of specific post bop musicians such as Herbie Hancock and Joe Henderson, it’s great.

For everything else - I’d ignore it and seek out specific sources, not least the records themselves.

If I'm not mistaken, this is one of the pieces of advice in the book - off the top of my head - 'everything you need to know is in your record collection'.

Furthermore I’d add from my own explorations that post bop practice is more diverse than you might think from reading that book.

Look - I don’t want to turn anything into an absolutist thing of ‘you must do this’ but I do think it’s valuable and important to match the tools to the desired outcome. There aren’t really any “shoulds” except in the context of what you want to do.

If you love bebop, don’t study chord scale theory with the expectation that it will get you there. And yet I’m not sure this is obvious to a lot of people. It certainly wasn’t to me getting started.

Similarly I’m not going to say don’t study chord scale theory if you want to play like John McLaughlin, because that would be mad. He uses it, (but it’s worth bearing in mind that probably isn’t where he started.) I would also certainly study his solos by ear if it were me.

OTOH there’s lot of cats out there who want to play like Wes or Joe pass and are utterly barking up the wrong tree.

I love bebop and see it as a sort of foundation of modern jazz, but wouldn't be content with (in some hypothetical future where I'm significantly more competent at this stuff than currently) just playing bebop - I'd want to do something different that you could call post-bop or something. Kurt Rosenwinkel is a chord-scale person if I'm not mistaken and he sounds pretty boppy on the album Intuit but I guess that's not really bebop, I guess you could say it's post-bop or a new wave of bop or something. Certainly John McLaughlin is someone I revere for a few reasons, one being the protean nature of his career spanning multiple sub-genres of jazz - but in terms of specifics, I wouldn't want to play like him even if I could. I'd like to play more like myself.

That said - if you wanted to play like Bill Evans or Herbie on the piano - that house is built on Bud Powell like all modern jazz piano. You can’t get there through chord scales alone. Reading between the lines, I think a lot of people coming to Levines teaching practice in the 70s could already play the older stuff. That stuff being learned through the recorded aural tradition and immersion in community of practice rather then from some theoretical basis. So that’s the context I take it in.

The Levine book taken as how to guide in particular seems to give people hang ups about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ pitch choices and over/intellectualise these decisions. For all that he spends his time saying ‘this isn’t THE jazz theory book’, he doesn’t half spend a lot of time telling people they are lazy for not playing altered on 7#9 or whatever.

The best cure for this type of thing is checking out the music oneself.

Developing one’s aural musicianship in relation to jazz is also non negotiable of course, and transcription - as it is inaccurately called - is a very holistic way to do that. Solos, tunes, licks, whatever grabs your fancy. You want to get to a point where it’s natural and not a big deal to do this, and many students are still intimated by it.

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Again, if I'm not mistaken, Levine stresses the importance of checking the music itself out. Which perforce means developing ones ears. Thanks for the context, that's interesting. TBH it's been a while since I took a look at the book. I think I realised some of its limitations at the time, albeit I think that it's one approach that may be useful, if definitely not the be all and end all...

[pamosmusic]

I think that book is very useful and rather enjoy it but also kind of agree with most of the assessments of its shortcomings.

I’ve had the Levine book for so long and don’t recommend it to students for a lot of reasons (many that Christian cited) that I don’t really spend too much time harping on that shortcomings and just like it as a reference for some stuff.

One thing I’ll say is that having some broad sweeping claims and absolutes that are disputable based on what people played on the records and then saying “but everything you need to know is on the records” is kind of like when the guy on YouTube tells you to invest in gold and then there’s a thing on the screen at the end that says “this is not financial advice” or whatever.

Im not really attributing that to the Levine book but it’s a thing people do in these settings pretty often.

The Levine book is better than that and he obviously knows a lot of stuff. Also his piano book is great. But I tend not to absolve people of their inaccuracies just for saying you should check their work on the records. Checking their work is their job.

[Christian Miller]

It's still knowledge though - regarding reading The Jazz Theory Book - even if you read it before being able to properly play jazz. You described it initially as 'inappropriate' - I wonder how this manifests itself in how a person tries to play jazz, because being able to write an essay in and of itself is no bad thing...

Not all knowledge is the same. I have come to regard technical knowledge in jazz as fairly cheap.

There's explicit knowledge - the type you need to know to pass a written exam, the knowledge of the academic student - and tacit knowledge - the type that you learn through experience, the skill of the artisan. Explicit knowledge is a the name suggests, more obvious, and historically valued more highly by society. The latter is vastly more important to the performing musician. It's not a completely binary distinction, and technical info (scales, chords etc) can be turned into embodied knowledge, but I don't think people always realise how much work it takes to do that. When I was a science student, we'd do anything to avoid repetitive work. In an artisanal skill, it's the exact opposite. Took me a long time to get that. I'm assuming it's the same for others.

I don't care if people can write essays if they can play! I'm a hypocrite but I'm not that bad.

I mean I could write an essay about this subject for sure lol. In fact I did, several times, sometimes for a course requirement. It's hard for me to know what I should cut out because there's so much to discuss, whether it's what I don't like about CST in general (less perhaps), what I don't like about the way CST is used in education (lots) or what I specifically find problematic about Levine's book, or the bigger problem of its context as a commonly recommended people for starting out in jazz.

What I would say is that if your aim is to play straight ahead jazz, you won't learn to do that from the Jazz Theory Book. If your aim is learn about chord scale theory and cool voicings etc, then yes.

I say this as someone who read that book before being able to play. I guess I was a bit disappointed with it TBH, though it does contain some words of wisdom, useful suggestions and knowledge, and I still do approach soloing in a chord-scale kind of way. You can doubtless tell. I ought to spend more time learning licks and bop lines etc.

Honestly I think Levine's book really fixates people on the wrong things and I disliked it more on a recent reread. People seem to get concerned about 'good sounding' notes on chords and the converse, the dreaded clams over chords. For that he starts off by pointing out the subjectivity and personal nature of his book, he makes a lot of prescriptive statements and sweeping generalisations that aren't supported IMO by the music.

But in many ways I'm aware a lot of criticism I might aim at JTB is simply based on it as one of the most visible arms of the chord scale approach applied in pedagogy, and the way that this book is misapplied sometimes as a method. This is less the books fault than the wider educational context. And JTB material is widely taught to beginners.

So you have the classic issues of players who meander stepwise around scales without much rhythm, are over concerned with the chord of the moment, don't have a framework for using dissonances in their lines such as neighbour tones and so on, don't know how to connect one chord how to phrase in connected forward motion - and, somehow, while being very preoccupied with the chords, don't clearly outline harmony in their playing.

Please understand I'm absolutely not saying this is the case with al players who have a chord scale approach. I'm obviously not saying this about people like Adam Rogers, or for that matter Mark Levine, or the many players who have a CST background who play great.

The thing is - this type of improv is not jazz. It doesn't swing and it doesn't have the flow or melodic characteristics of the music. I think very often the students realise this as well as anyone! So actual the learning of jazz happens further down the line, if at all. Maybe never in some cases, because an essential steps to become a jazz player are not technical, but based on experiential knowledge.

So people end up with the false impression that jazz improvisation is a problem to be solved and that the improviser must invent compelling music out of raw materials each time. At the early stages it encourages more technically minded students, and those who are happier to confidentially play something whether or not it sounds good or means anything.

I don't think the word 'ought' has much value. None of us are bound to do anything. We should match our desired outcome to the tools we use. Bop is a cornerstone of modern jazz, but if you for example wanted to play like John McLaughlin you would at least want to check out CST as it is something he uses.

Ultimately the non negotiable to me is the ears. But that's about becoming a musician for me. It's not specifically about bebop - or jazz - for that matter. We should aim to engage with music directly as much as we can, obvious really. It doesn't have to be lifting licks, although that's a good way to sound good fast, or even learning solos. It definitely has to be in there somewhere - learning repertoire if nothing else. And active listening is vital even if it isn't transcription per se.

[AllanAllen]

If I'm not mistaken, this is one of the pieces of advice in the book - off the top of my head - 'everything you need to know is in your record collection'.

It might be in the book, but you yourself have said you didn’t follow the advice. Which I think is the typical behavior. Which seems to be the main criticism.

You can’t theory knowledge yourself into a good player, but people recommend this book like it’s the essential place to start, and it’s not.

For what it’s worth, I own the book but didn’t get 3 pages in. It’s just not what I’m looking for at all. So my personal taste may have something to do with it. I’d rather learn you can play C major over Am Dm G7 C6 because it’s a thing called vi ii V I than learn the mode names to do the same
thing. I just want enough knowledge to know which shape to play around with.

[Christian Miller]

I must have forgotten that it contained any historical info...


[FONT=&quot]

If I'm not mistaken, this is one of the pieces of advice in the book - off the top of my head - 'everything you need to know is in your record collection'.




I love bebop and see it as a sort of foundation of modern jazz, but wouldn't be content with (in some hypothetical future where I'm significantly more competent at this stuff than currently) just playing bebop - I'd want to do something different that you could call post-bop or something. Kurt Rosenwinkel is a chord-scale person if I'm not mistaken and he sounds pretty boppy on the album Intuit but I guess that's not really bebop, I guess you could say it's post-bop or a new wave of bop or something. Certainly John McLaughlin is someone I revere for a few reasons, one being the protean nature of his career spanning multiple sub-genres of jazz - but in terms of specifics, I wouldn't want to play like him even if I could. I'd like to play more like myself.



Again, if I'm not mistaken, Levine stresses the importance of checking the music itself out. Which perforce means developing ones ears. Thanks for the context, that's interesting. TBH it's been a while since I took a look at the book. I think I realised some of its limitations at the time, albeit I think that it's one approach that may be useful, if definitely not the be all and end all...

Haha you always reply to things I post as I delete them. I wasn't satisfied with my first reply. It's a big topic.

[Christian Miller]

I must have forgotten that it contained any historical info...

Yeah, for instance, he transcribes a Louis solo and makes all sorts of sweeping statements about early jazz lol and how Louis was modern for using the bebop scale or something (I forget exactly what). It’s just not his area of knowledge.

I think modern jazz musicians had a stereotyped idea of early jazz note choices and when they transcribe an actual solo from that era, they are surprised at how 'modern' it is, as if everything before 1945 had to be just chord tones and the blues. That kind of attitude was very prevalent. Ritchie Hart said that one Berklee faculty member said that there were no diminished chords in early jazz, which is just bananas if you've listen to any early jazz at all. The main idea is here that principal vector of development in jazz was harmonic.

Conrad Cork does a great job of giving this myth a kicking in his LEGO bricks book. He calls it the 'Harmony as the Engine' paradigm in jazz history and education.

These days I think it's a bit better, we don't have the old split so much any more, everyone listens to everything.

[FONT=&quot]

If I'm not mistaken, this is one of the pieces of advice in the book - off the top of my head - 'everything you need to know is in your record collection'.

Oh cool, throw the book away then, innit?

I love bebop and see it as a sort of foundation of modern jazz, but wouldn't be content with (in some hypothetical future where I'm significantly more competent at this stuff than currently) just playing bebop - I'd want to do something different that you could call post-bop or something. Kurt Rosenwinkel is a chord-scale person if I'm not mistaken and he sounds pretty boppy on the album Intuit but I guess that's not really bebop, I guess you could say it's post-bop or a new wave of bop or something. Certainly John McLaughlin is someone I revere for a few reasons, one being the protean nature of his career spanning multiple sub-genres of jazz - but in terms of specifics, I wouldn't want to play like him even if I could. I'd like to play more like myself.

A great way to play more like yourself is to find what you like and copy it. So that's why I'd never say 'copy this thing', but leave it up to the student what to copy.

Try not to get too worried about sounding like yourself, I used to think 'gotta sound like me, got sound like me' and now ten years on I'm 'oh crap! I sound like me... oh well, better make the best of it.'

FWIW I think you have a individual style in there, and studying Johnny Mac, nor Kurt or anyone else whose playing you love is not going to take that away from you (for better or worse haha). IMO a player is never too good to learn something by copying someone else. The better you get, the more you hear.

[James W]

It might be in the book, but you yourself have said you didn’t follow the advice.

Did I? Where?

[Tal_175]

The reharmonition chapters of Levine's book have some cool ideas that can be applied to guitar.

[Tal_175]

There seems to be an implicit 30 page rule in jazz books. There are about 30 pages or so useful material in a typical jazz book, the rest is put there to make the publisher happy so they can justify the price.

[Christian Miller]

The reharmonition chapters of Levine's book have some cool ideas that can be applied to guitar.

Yeah it’s a great source book. It’s not a beginners book and it’s not a how to jazz book, and with full fairness to Levine I don’t think that was ever his intention.


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[James W]

Oh cool, throw the book away then, innit?

Well, not literally. There is useful stuff about reading chord charts/symbols, slash chords etc.

A great way to play more like yourself is to find what you like and copy it. So that's why I'd never say 'copy this thing', but leave it up to the student what to copy.

Try not to get too worried about sounding like yourself, I used to think 'gotta sound like me, got around like me' and now ten years on I'm 'oh crap! I sound like me... oh well, better make the most of it.'

FWIW I think you have a individual style in there, and studying Johnny Mac, nor Kurt or anyone else whose playing you love is not going to take that away from you (for better or worse haha). IMO a player is never too good to learn something by copying someone else. The better you get, the more you hear.

Thanks. I think tone means a lot for guitarists, but I think I wouldn't be bothered to chase another player's tone - for example, someone like Holdsworth who IMO has the most distinctive tone of pretty much any guitarist ever, at least that I know of. I've transcribed a few things of McLaughlin. But it's generally been things that simply aren't that relevant to where I'm at, but nonetheless have a deep love for and therefore curiosity about - 'Dragon Song' and 'Dark Prince'. The one being mind-blowingly amazing licks over an awesome riff, the other a very fast minor blues with some Coltranesque substitutions, so the use of either of these is not immediately apparent. OTOH there are things I transcribe because I'm learning the tune and want some inspiration e.g. Martin Taylor and Andreas Oberg playing ATTYA.

(Drifted off topic somewhat...)

[marcwhy]

The thread title is "jazz books" but the thread asks about "jazz guitar;" I'll stick with the former.

Two great books are Hal Crook's, "Ready, Aim, Improvise!" and Jerry Bergonzi's vol. 6, "Developing a Jazz Language."

Ok, now the latter - Steve Khan has two practical guitar books, on chord and pentatonic "Khancepts," that can expand your playing in fun and relatively easy ways!

[alltunes]

There seems to be an implicit 30 page rule in jazz books. There are about 30 pages or so useful material in a typical jazz book, the rest is put there to make the publisher happy so they can justify the price.

I have bought and sold dozens of jazz books…Garrison Fewell’s Melodic Approach book is the only one I will never sell…also it breaks the implicit rule

[Tal_175]

Yeah it’s a great source book. It’s not a beginners book and it’s not a how to jazz book, and with full fairness to Levine I don’t think that was ever his intention.

Unfortunately somehow it got the reputation of being a beginners introduction to jazz book. The other day I overheard a highly experienced jazz pro recommening that book to a beginner who wanted to understand diatonic harmony. Needless to say it made me cringe.

[pamosmusic]

There seems to be an implicit 30 page rule in jazz books. There are about 30 pages or so useful material in a typical jazz book, the rest is put there to make the publisher happy so they can justify the price.

Thats funny.

Honestly most of the time they barely crack ten pages.

Then they do the same ten in the key of G. Then in the key of D. Etc.

[AllanAllen]

Did I? Where?

here

I still do approach soloing in a chord-scale kind of way. You can doubtless tell. I ought to spend more time learning licks and bop lines etc.

[rpjazzguitar]

I read Levine’s JTB as an intro to the subject. It provided a much needed foundation. I think it is an unusually well-written book, as well done as any text I’ve seen in any subject.

He had to figure out what jazz theory is and how to organize it in a way that makes it accessible. I think he was resoundingly successful. That some disagree, even vehemently, isn’t surprising in the least. He’s breaking art into chapters - an amorphous glob into well structured text with musical examples for evidence. Disagreement is inevitable.

Errors in texts are corrected in subsequent editions. Perhaps it’s unfortunate that we don’t have that. But I doubt that he’d have changed much.

[Christian Miller]

Thats funny.

Honestly most of the time they barely crack ten pages.

Then they do the same ten in the key of G. Then in the key of D. Etc.

Well that’s certainly not an accusation I could level against the JTB. There’s a lot of stuff in there.


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[Christian Miller]

Unfortunately somehow it got the reputation of being a beginners introduction to jazz book. The other day I overheard a highly experienced jazz pro recommening that book to a beginner who wanted to understand diatonic harmony. Needless to say it made me cringe.

Especially when there are genuinely good beginners books out there like Randy Vincent’s. And he’d teach cst etc and is more mainstream, but he really understands how to structure a beginners jazz book.

anyway, Vincent starts with rhythm guitar, comping, moves to melody playing, paraphrasing melody and only then to improvising with pitch collections. It’s a very good order to teach things in and one that I’ve not seen to much elsewhere.

It also doesn’t over focus on improvisation at the expense of just playing the music and learning stuff to play that sounds right.

I sometimes think that the biggest issue with students learning jazz is their improvising instead of practicing. I wonder if they are two separate things. Improvisation is about making music, practice is not. Kenny Werner’s stuff is useful on this issue.

But then if you are doing jazz guitar for fun, you probably want to improvise. But then if you want to improvise jazz, you have to learn jazz. If you wanted to learn to improvise Hindustani music you’d be taught the phrases aurally by a guru. If you wanted to improvise any style of music, you have to become intimately acquainted with the form and tradition.

There’s no other way, there’s no shortcut and there’s no book that will teach you this.

So perhaps books are necessarily useless for learning to play jazz. The best they can do is give you some ideas for your music.

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[pamosmusic]

I sometimes think that the biggest issue with students learning jazz is their improvising instead of practicing. I wonder if they are two separate things. Improvisation is about making music, practice is not. Kenny Werner’s stuff is useful on this issue.

But then if you are doing jazz guitar for fun, you probably want to improvise. But then if you want to improvise jazz, you have to learn jazz. If you wanted to learn to improvise Hindustani music you’d be taught the phrases aurally by a guru. If you wanted to improvise any style of music, you have to become intimately acquainted with the form and tradition.

There’s no other way, there’s no shortcut and there’s no book that will teach you this.

So perhaps books are necessarily useless for learning to play jazz. The best they can do is give you some ideas for your music.

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I had an older friend in college kind of berate me for playing in the practice rooms. “This isn’t where you do that.”

He was ragging on me a little but also was serious. Practice time is for practicing.

I think I probably improvise for 10-20% of my practice time and it’s in very narrow parameters. More like wandering through and exploring the material I’ve been practicing than really improvising.

[joe2758]

I had an older friend in college kind of berate me for playing in the practice rooms. “This isn’t where you do that.”

He was ragging on me a little but also was serious. Practice time is for practicing.

I think I probably improvise for 10-20% of my practice time and it’s in very narrow parameters. More like wandering through and exploring the material I’ve been practicing than really improvising.

[Chonker]

Top 50 Jazz Guitar Books

[James W]

here

Yeah I need to spend more time on learning licks and bop lines. That's not the advice that the Levine book gives, which relates to transcription, which is something I have done and continue to do.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah I need to spend more time on learning licks and bop lines. That's not the advice that the Levine book gives, which relates to transcription, which is something I have done and continue to do.

You can get a lot just from bop heads. Plus you can play them on gigs.

That's a David Baker tip - if you learn 50 bop heads you'll learn all the language you need.

Charles McPherson says that Barry just expected students to learn heads. He said he didn't really talk about transcription of solos, and I never heard him talk about it, but it was obvious he knew the entire Bird and Bud discography by ear on a deep level, whatever he was teaching. So - make of that what you will haha

[James W]

You can get a lot just from bop heads. Plus you can play them on gigs.

That's a David Baker tip - if you learn 50 bop heads you'll learn all the language you need.

Charles McPherson says that Barry just expected students to learn heads. He said he didn't really talk about transcription of solos, and I never heard him talk about it, but it was obvious he knew the entire Bird and Bud discography by ear on a deep level, whatever he was teaching. So - make of that what you will haha

Alrighty. I recall Ant Law saying that there was a time that he would have 'bebop for breakfast' - that is, play all the bebop heads he knew at the time, close to the number you mention, first thing in the morning.

And I have a piece of paper where I wrote down all the bebop heads you listed on a post here some time ago. I was systematically transcribing them. Probably be an idea to continue with that, and actually learn the damn things by heart. Right now, Donna Lee is the only one I play every day.