Customer Reviews

Andy Laverne's Guide to Jazz Piano, Vol. 1 and 2

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Please do not be turned off by the low rating. I own these videos and his others, and I just happened upon this page not recognizing the 2-DVD set as an available single item. And then I was curious as to what exactly the gripe could possibly BE concerning these videos. Disregard the review - any of you who are seeking a quick insight into jazz piano, I would HIGHLY recommend the videos. I'd say these would go great with Mark Levine's three THEORY books, all three "NEW REAL BOOKS" and the WORLD'S GREATEST FAKE BOOK, all from SHER PUBLISHING. It also helps a LOT, once you've digested the basics of at least three-note voicings and voice leading, to cop some of those AEBERSOLD play-alongs - be sure to get the ones that have the companion "PIANO VOICINGS" companion volumes: unless you're willing to do the hard ear training work with headphones, picking out all the individual notes of the voicings the pianist plays on the CD (and they all play some really cool voicings you'll definitely want to learn) - which isn't such a bad practice in the long run - the "PIANO VOICINGS" companion books to, say, VOLUME 1 will lead you through the measures on the CD, giving you note-for-note transcriptions of what the piano's up to. There are lead sheets for C, Bb, Eb, and bass clef in the basic volumes, so you can get a hint - but bewarned if you're a total newbie that often the hippest voicings are often root in the bass under thirds and sevenths inverted with extensions (9s, 11s, and 13s and their alterations) thrown in, too - and sometimes it's not so simple as G-B-Fb and instead could be, like, G-D-F-E (G/D-7) or G-C-F-A (G/Fsus) - and this last, for example, can in turn be voiced with the pedal an octave away from the pedal or...OMG, really, just get the damned VOICINGS volume! LOL. But really, despite what some people may regard as drudgery really starts to get cool if you'll take the time to at lest become comfortable with the simple patterns inherent in voice leading in II-V-Is. The video is nice for having a living moving person do this stuff in front of you - pause - play - pause, you know. Once you get to just a certain point, it becomes so f*****g FUN, really, because you WILL get it soon and you'll have such excitement over all the ways you can comp your favorite tune, use chord tones on top for melody, etc. But armed with just this little bit of stuff - even just the JAZZ PIANO BOOK, the 2 Laverne DVDs, and like AEBERSOLD VOLUME ONE, you'll be all proud of yourself for sounding a bit jazzier in a month! The only OTHER thing I could recommend that I did personally when I was starting out was get the ELEVATION LE software for your computer, which does the same thing as a Tascam Trainer for 20 bucks less - it'll change pitch/tempo of your CDs so that you can deconstruct those badass solos (like Herbie Hancock's on the Miles song "Circle", whew!)you've always wanted to figure out, and it works equally well on the playalongs, too, especially when you want to really pick apart and transcribe solos.

If you're familiar with the names AL FOSTER, RANDY BRECKER, GEORGE MRAZ, then you know something about jazz - and these are the high-level players in Laverne's quartet. He's also featured often in solo recordings.

If you're familiar with the name BILL EVANS, then you know something about jazz (a LOT, actually, haha) - and this was one of his first jazz teachers. I also own Laverne's book of transcriptions of 19 Bill Evans compositions - I liked it when I bought it because he kept the rhythmic predilections and some of the signature left hand voicings simplified so as not to be daunting to the beginner, I suppose. He was mentioned more than a couple of times in "How My Heart Sings", the biography of Bill Evans, and he was also interviewed, and it appears the two became fast friends starting when Evans was in his 30s and Laverne was still just 19 or so (if I rememberber right). I think it's cool that the other reviewer states his preference for a more "charismatic" teacher, because Bill Evans himself was known to be a sort of "husk" on stage, gaunt, ghostly figure, a non-entity - as one astute critique, either Feather or Hentoff, wrote, basically: don't blame him if he seems inaccessible - the MUSIC is where it's at; if you can't hear that, then you shouldn't be there, because that's where HE'S at.

When I bought these DVDs, I did so - I don't know about you - but I did so based on hearing the dude's PLAYING, his comping and solo piano. In other words, if you want an entertainer, go get instruction from the Black-Eyed Peas or Gaga or someone. I don't need a sight-for-sore-eyes but a REAL gigging pro who's played with greats and paid his dues and KNOWS. Forget charisma. This here music ain't about coddling somebody - take it or leave it! If you ain't looking for a damned DATE with the man, check out what he has to say.

If you know the name JAMEY AEBERSOLD, then you know something about great methods for learning to jam with your newfound jazz theory - and this is an employer and publisher of Laverne's instructional work. He actually plays on a few playalongs and was chosen to handle the title enetitled "Tunes You Thought You Knew", which is ALL about reharmonizations. In fact, more than a little of his published works deals with this FUNDAMENTAL aspect of jazz piano. Laverne is on the Aebersold faculty of educators as well. He plays with guys like RUFUS REID on a couple playalongs, fa' cryin' out loud! He works as an educator with guys like RON CARTER, BOB CRANSHAW, and HAROLD MABERN!

Finally, where anyone's concerned about the "intellectualization" of jazz, bewarned: read any biographies of the greats in jazz and that's what you're going to find, from Bird and Bud and on down the line to Evans and Hancock and Mulgrew Miller. It's an intellectual pursuit until it ceases to be - that is, at some point you've, in Bird's words, "mastered the changes, then forgot 'em". Where jazz piano is concerned, of COURSE intellection is involved, as in any art - and jazz IS the American art music. If you don't come from an intellectual standpoint, you'll never analyze and question, and you'll play what others have already played, never known because never playing with a voice of your OWN. Some people think improvisation is something sprung fully-formed from the forehead of Athena, something perhaps primitive, but really, it's an arduous discipline and an insatiable love for and curiosity about the music - and yes, it requires exactly what Laverne points to here. It is NOT mechanical, but like math, like, say, Debussy and the Golden Proeportion some see in his compositions - it has it's mechanisms, it's designs - and yet what is heard is emotive in nature. Did you know Miles hung out with the Existentialist Sartre and Picasso? Not that all players are like that - but in a big way, concerning craft, they are.

I know there are people who learn to play classical without ever being asked to think, to analyze, without ever being instructed in the rationale behind the compositions they strive to interpret, but in jazz, there will be nothing for you to parrot. Instead, you'll have the skeletal framework of a lead sheet, maybe just a few modes - and what are you going to do with all that freedom? Well, you have to start by learning II-V-Is in all keys, three-note voicings, inversions, tritone substitutions, how and why a suspended chord reharmonizes the II-V using a pedal point, how to alter chords, the drop 2 block chords, ect - all the while learning why the seventh and third are perfect approach tones, or why a IV chord lends a floating, atonal ambiguity that begs for resolution - and how to do it all rhythmically. There's work to be done, just like when the neophyte enters the monastary. There are no shortcuts. And the whole of this - not even counting single note runs - is all so that you can utilize this stuff at the drop of a dime, on time, and with freedom. This intellectual work is what Bill Evans admits to having had to do on his own, to "BUILD" his music, as he put it, from the ground up, which is why so many pianists reserved seats at the Village Vanguard to spy on Evans' hands: What ARE those voicings??? they asked. Because he worked hard to create his own Impressionist strokes using the so-called "mathematical" or "mechanical" basics some complain about, and then earned the freedom to innovate with his heart.

I mention the above to point out yet another connection here between Bill Evans and Andy Laverne: being Evans' pupil at a time when Evans was at perhaps the apogee of his harmonic concept, how could that same fascination and methodical approach (for Bill Evans was very lucid and deliberate in his musings and experiments)not have rubbed off on Laverne? It's THIS that appealed to me when I bought these DVDs. I also already owned Laverne's Aebersold playalong stuff, and his "Tons of Runs" and his chord substitutions book, and got a chance to hear him play. When a reviewer condemns a great musician and educator based on lack of "charisma" or bemoans a pedagogical approach because it's not the collection of "licks" and flowery words, the paint-by-numbers he'd hoped for, I have to wonder about the amount of LISTENING he's really done in jazz - listening, the first education and free to the public. Go to Youtube, type in an author's name, listen. THAT'S how I'D judge a teacher - I don't know about YOU, but that's I'D choose my teacher. What else IS there, really?

Basically, I recommend Andy Laverne's stuff because it works if you have the devotion to the goal, which is imnprovised comping and soloing. You'll gain the freedom where your ear will consciously pick out very evocative/provacative/emotive voicings in combinations that will literally sing out whatever you decide the tune calls for. Really. Yearning, pursuit, melancholy, agitation, relief, jive, lust, clowning, coolness, anger. It's not for no reason that musicians sometimes use titles just such as these for certain tunes - it's in the harmony and it's up to us as aspiring jazz masters to discern those changes.

Great beginners' set of DVDs. Forget pedagogical conceits and jump right in. Make no excuses for what you refuse to stick with - I used to do that starting out, buy up all this instructional stuff, eschewing anything that smacked of real WORK. WORK??? Aaaaw, maaaan, I wanna play JAZZ! LOL. you can waste years blaming the authors for your own lack of self-discipline, so keep it real. Oh - and maaaan, I could give a DAMN about if the video quality looks like it's from the 80s - my favorite intructional DVDs are the concert footage of jazz pianists' hands that look like they're from the SIXTIES - wait, they ARE from the 60 - the FORTIES, even - oops, oh, wait, that means they have nothing relevant to say, huh? Shiiii... LOL.

I must say that this DVD (DVD 1) has not helped me at all to learn jazz piano and I find it unnecessarily complicates the process.
The DVD is obviously somewhat dated, with a very 80s look from the presenter.
My background is in classical piano (some years ago and rusty), and jazz guitar.
Andy Laverne's way of explaining jazz is to start with all the modes of the scale. The process is for him to play C ionian, C dorian, C phrygian etc etc. and run through these rapidly, playing different chords underneath. I find his approach very academic, impractical and quite unnatural. I have been playing jazz guitar for some years and have seen others explain this in a far more natural, less academic style (eg jazz guitarist Jimmy Bruno) that actually translates into making sounds and music.
I have tried to study using this DVD several times but it really does not work for me at all, and I was unable to get beyond 20 minutes into it. I don't know- maybe it improves later on, but I could not persist. Maybe others who like to intellectualise the process will enjoy this, if they are the "mathematician" style of jazz player.
Rather than this DVD, I would recommend Warren Bernhardt's series of Jazz Piano DVDs which are taught in a far more musical, practical, and enjoyable way by a charismatic musician.