Jazz books recommendations?

Hey everyone!

After playing my lovely telecaster for a bunch of years now, i got pretty bored with the stuff i play. I mainly play rock and blues stuff and i cant see another single power chord or stupid rock riff anymore! :mrgreen: . So now i want to branch out and look for new stuff. So i thought why not trying some Jazz and see how i can apply that theory/techniques into my own playing style.

So i have bought this book by Jody Fisher it consists of beginner/intermediate/chord melody and improvisation. So i guess i have something to do for the next couple of years lol. Also have the Mickey Baker book. Is this a good start? Does anyone know the Jody Fisher books, used them? Any other books/dvd's you guys can reccommend?

I have the jody fisher books begginer - advanced. They are great for getting you started, I think they open the right doors to see what the real estate looks like.

Personally, I like the William G. Lleavitt books Modern Method for Guitar I-III. Way more indepth and tell the whole story, more difficult yes and they take longer to digest, but I felt like I could do more and had accomplished more after I finished those.

If you are wanting to get into jazz, my suggestion is copy the masters, learn their licks and apply them in your own ways. Learn a few tunes and find someone to take a lesson or two every once in a while to help keep you motivated and moving forward.

Best of luck and don't give up!

I have the jody fisher books begginer - advanced. They are great for getting you started, I think they open the right doors to see what the real estate looks like.

Personally, I like the William G. Lleavitt books Modern Method for Guitar I-III. Way more indepth and tell the whole story, more difficult yes and they take longer to digest, but I felt like I could do more and had accomplished more after I finished those.

If you are wanting to get into jazz, my suggestion is copy the masters, learn their licks and apply them in your own ways. Learn a few tunes and find someone to take a lesson or two every once in a while to help keep you motivated and moving forward.

Best of luck and don't give up!

I did take a look at the leavitt book too, i just felt like, without a guitar teacher it's really hard to work through it. Might take a second look at them!

Fischer and Baker are a fine start.

Leavitt will get your reading in shape, but it won't teach you how to play jazz.

Listen to as much jazz as possible...gotta get it in your soul.

Transcribing's great, but it might be tough at first.

Learn songs, don't learn scales and stuff in a vacuum. Get a RealBook pronto.

Arpeggios are the key for jazz beginners. Put the scales away. The one scale fits all approach is not over...it doesn't work in jazz. Get down to the meat and potatoes--all the important notes you need for soloing are living right there in the chords.

Learn chords ravenously. Ted Greene's "Chord Chemistry" is a book you can take one or two ideas from, work with them a month, then go back and take two more ideas, etc. At that pace, you exhaust the possibilities in that book in approximately 167 years.

Did I mention listening to jazz? My new mantra is, if you ever want to play jazz, it has to be the music that plays in your head.

Avoid any "get rich quick" schemes. Any "all or nothing" approach is usually crap.

And while books are good, nobody ever learned how to play jazz from a book. Find some players who are better than you and let them kick you around a little.

Look into a program called "Band in a Box"--it's excellent.

Congratulations. If you go about this right you never have to be bored again the rest of your life.

Jazztele knows what's he's talking about, books hmm..Mickey Baker's books are pretty good,you have to learn to read traditional notation..Jamie Aebersold books are a good starting point to if you can already read music..yeah those Lleavitt Berkley books=Modern Method are tough,but doable. I'm just learning jazz too.

Hey Jeff, can you recommend a good Jazz chord melody book?

Leavitt will get your reading in shape, but it won't teach you how to play jazz.


Totally agree, I don't think there is a book that will "teach you how to play jazz". Not only is it good for reading, but it will improve your rhythm (super important). It will give you the fundamentals of jazz harmony and chord construction. It will teach you scales and modes and their uses. You will know enough chords to read through the real books that are necessary to learning tunes. It will give good examples of rhythm guitar parts that work on the bandstand.

Ridgerunner, there is a great website with many free chord solos! This guy has a great teaching style and he's got a doctoral degree in jazz guitar! here's a link

http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/

I can't really reccommend a book for chord melody, I didn't use one. I think I learned a lot by diving in...sink or swim.

I like the collections of barry galbraith arrangements "solo jazz classics" but it's not a how to, more of a "look and steal."

Btw, the matt warnock site is great.

Oh, and if you can't read notation, time to learn. No tabs for jazz.

Did I mention listening to jazz? My new mantra is, if you ever want to play jazz, it has to be the music that plays in your head.

What he said....but I have found some books quite inspiring - keep in mind though,that most of the "good" books - The Guitarist's Guide to Composing and Improvising, The Advancing Guitarist, Pat Martino's Linear Expressions, Ted Greene,Barry Galbraith etc really need a teacher or mentor to put them in context for someone starting out.

Another great book is Mark Levine's "The Jazz Piano Book" - not guitar specific , more of a breakdown of important harmonic concepts.

And I downloaded the Matt Warnock book - its a very good "way in". Hes a smart and organised teacher.

I have a couple of Jody Fisher books and found them to be very good. I also have a lot of Aebersold playalongs, and they are really great imo, and many other books.

I also think the key in the beginning is learning your arpeggios. once you have those down you'll be able to hit all the chord tones and really drive the harmony along with your soloing.

you can download the Improvisor backing track software for free:

http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/improvisor/

however, if you're really serious about learning jazz you might try Jimmy Bruno's online course. I've been doing it for a while and it has really helped my playing. nothing like having a real human slap down your mistakes and misunderstandings, and point you in the right direction.

and one thing: don't let anyone tell you to "play dorian over the m7, mixo over the dominant 7th...." etc. dorian, mixolydian, major, etc. are all the same notes. playing a major scale over a the whole major ii-V-I is the same thing. the important thing in the beginning is to know, and hear, which notes are the chord tones and which are not.

Oh cool..I'll check that out..I bought a Charlie Christian that's in Tab by Wolf Marshall..Amazon.com keeps wanting to buy it back..haha. There are a few "Wes" Tab books out there I'd like to get..but yeah you gotta transcribe if nothing else to develop the ears!
I tried working thru the Vincent Bredice improv books from Mel bay..but they wore me out doing all these exercises in all keys ,I quickly saw you gotta have some discipline if you wanna get a handle on Jazz!

There are a few "Wes" Tab books out there I'd like to get..

Yep I've got one of those and its full of errors...if you want to know which one I'll PM you.

Learn tunes...learn the heads to those tunes...try putting the tunes into different keys... try to figure out some chord melody ideas for the heads and the solo's....explore 'drop 2' voicing's vis a vis chord melody ideas....learn scales as well as arpeggio's... try playing positionally, as opposed to all over the neck, when soloing....play with others!....use play along tracks to practice.... practice arpeggio ideas and scale ideas through the cycle of fifths....listen to lots of jazz recordings by famous players of your instrument.....listen to Oscar Peterson!.... if you have an iPhone get the irealB app and the jazz package that goes with it as it is basically a transposable real book, band in a box and a looper all in one.
At some point you will need to find a good teacher to help you as well.

IMO the best way to learn jazz (assuming you are already listening to jazz everyday) is to get lessons from a good teacher. There are a lot great books that serve as fine supplemental materials (as others have advised); but there is just no substitute for a teacher that can answer your questions, offer suggestions for listening, give you exercises, explain theory concepts, etc...

Id learn the root position chords first. Id go with the Freddie Green/Django stuff first. Then inversions. Then learn the DGBe string block chords. Check this out -

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46505924/Drop2-voicings-for-Jazz-Guitar

good, short and to the point. I use those voicings ALL the time in situations when I have to play with a bass player.

learn all the corresponding arpeggios with those chords and how to connect one arp to another.

For the love of God start transcribing solos. Depending on the style you want to focus on So What is a good choice, as is a lot of stuff by Grant Green (try Cool Blues)

omg thanks for all the great tips! Also very very much thanks for the app tip on IrealB i love this app! Definatly i will go and continue now!

I will use baker for the chords and fisher for all the other stuff. Fisher is throwing 3000 chords at you which kinda throws me off. I dont really listen to jazz, i love some george benson, marcus miller from time to time. But in the studio i record mainly reggae/blues stuff so i hope i can find a way to incorporate the jazz stuff into my personal stuff.

Like i said i got sick of playing the same stuff, after playing 100 rock songs you kinda know them all. And i just kinda, another way at looking at music. Another perspective.

I noticed in your last post that you said you "don't really listen to jazz".


Listen to as much jazz as possible...gotta get it in your soul.


This is actually the best piece of info in this thread.
Books are great but making 'jazz' a part of your listening day is an absolute must, non-negotiable part of it.

I'll assume you meant that you didn't listen to much jazz(?) :wink:

I noticed in your last post that you said you "don't really listen to jazz".



This is actually the best piece of info in this thread.
Books are great but making 'jazz' a part of your listening day is an absolute must, non-negotiable part of it.

I'll assume you meant that you didn't listen to much jazz(?) :wink:

lol, lets rephrase that. i listen to some jazz :razz: I just look for another perspective on music, and ways to incorporate that into my own stuff. But i love some marcus miller and benson at times :mrgreen:

here come you get a plate of this!
EkPD3awAooo

http://www.wdcb.org/

Those of us in chicagoland are fortunate to have this station. Listen in when you have time.

Any of the books will give you the basics but the basics are only a starting point. Its a language you have to think in it. That only comes with trial and error. Some of the best playing i've done was completely by accident and trying to conciously recreate what i did by accident has caused me to learn more.

It takes a child 4 year or so to learn english, then if he/she wants to learn spanish or chinese or whatever it takes another 4 year or so. Give yourself time, learn the alphabet (notes), words (chords), poems (melodies), coloquialisms (licks) then play them for the fun of it.

Ted Greene's "Chord Chemistry" is a book you can take one or two ideas from

Along with Mickey Bakers' I have Ted Greene's:
Chord Chemistry 1971
Modern Chord Progressions Vol. 1 1976

Just yesterday I took both out to test my fingers.
Holy skvt....I feel like I'm starting over given all the different chord fingerings he notes.
These books are some work no doubt but I'm enjoying revisiting these.

Carry on....

here come you get a plate of this!
EkPD3awAooo

I totally love Emily Remler. She was just coming on the scene big, and gigging around Philadelphia when I was in the Air Force and first living in the area in the mid-to-late 70s.There is someone who left us way too young.

Thanks for all the great tips and replys :D i'm busy with the fisher book for like a week now and its been great. I have learned stuff already! Working on my arpeggios now and stuff like that. Great thanks to y'all :mrgreen:

Hey Jeff, can you recommend a good Jazz chord melody book?

I'm not Jeff, but I play him on TV.

No wait, that's not right. In any case . . .

Chapter 14 of Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry is on chord melody.

I also have an old Howard Roberts book on Chord Melodies which is pretty amazing. But when I search Amazon I don't see it. I'll try to remember to find it when I get home.

Check out the lessons on the TedGreene.com website. His song arrangements are wonderful and you will pick up a lot of tips there.

The final thing I'd suggest is a bit of advice I heard from Mundell Lowe who said "Melodize the harmony. Don't harmonize the melody." What he means by that is to find the chords which move through the piece ans then add the melody notes. If you try to play the melody and then grab chords underneath it you tend to sound very forced and awkward.

The final thing I'd suggest is a bit of advice I heard from Mundell Lowe who said "Melodize the harmony.

awesome - he knew a thing or two.

Hey Indontmiztipe!

First of all, take I book and really work on it! If you are trying to study one week from one book and second week from other book, this will lead you to know nothing.
Second recommendation: find private teacher. Personal contact is one of the most important things in learning and studying music.
Third recommendation: Learn to play piano. At least some basics. This will help you with imagination and improve your harmonic thinking.
The best book to start is "The Jazz Piano Book" by Mark Levine (http://www.jazzbooksreviews.com/piano/the-jazz-piano-book/)!

Good Luck!
Tomas

Man if you got to ask that question, like me you're in a lot of trouble :O