Customer Reviews

The Art of Jazz Trumpet

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

Fellow Travelers -

I have found John McNeil's "The Art of Jazz Trumpet" to be truly helpful and inspiring. The exercises presented are tough, though-provoking, and very cleverly focused on amplifying skills that appear - to me at least - to be genuinely useful in a jazz setting. Personally, I see the value of this book less in the applicability of specific lines ("licks") to tunes, and more in improving the improviser's ability to present his/her own ideas with more propulsive articulation, fluidity, and melodic confidence.

There is, of course, a significant (in terms of wood shed frustration) cost factor here - but most players, I suspect, will feel that the improvements are deep and fast enough to fall well within our pain and patience thresholds.

Thanks John for a terrific contribution to the field, and for my (small but enjoyable) personal mini-breakthrough - it has been a long time, and I'm really enjoying the experience.

Bravo.

Jim Stagnitto
www.stagnitto.newhopecollective.com

The discography alone makes the price of the book worth it to me. The history and pix of trumpet players is also a nice addition to what is an excellent method for jazz trumpet. Its exercises are tough but sound very cool and all would be great arrows in your improvisation quiver. I've already started practicing and am enjoying myself more than I have in a long time. Thanks, John.

It is important to realise that unlike many other jazz books this book does not set out to try to teach you how to improvise, nor is it a jazz theory book. You would benefit from at least some working knowledge of both these topics before you embark on this book (I would recommend something like Levine's The Jazz Theory Book if you need more background). Instead it helps you to develop the more technical aspects of jazz trumpet playing through exercises, etudes and well-written text.

The first part of the book covers the history of jazz trumpet from about the bebop era onwards, through some discussions of the musical styles of a number of key players and some musical examples.
The hard work starts with a large section on jazz articulation, in which you learn to control your placement of accents on different notes in a phrase and develop a polyrhythmic feel. He provides exercises for wide interval playing - something that is quite hard on trumpet compared to an instrument like the saxophone. Alternate fingerings are covered along with some exercises. He also discusses doodle tonguing made famous by especially by Clark Terry. This is the jazz player's way of tonguing fast passage as opposed to the multiple tonguing used by classical players. He has a useful section on tricky fingering studies which you can even practise without blowing into the horn (useful when the chops are tired).

Although I said that he doesn't try to teach you how to improvise, there are a few useful ideas scattered through the text. For example, after his first articulation study, he gives an example of how you might shift sections of it up or down a semitone at random when you are playing to get an "out" feeling. Putting some randomness into a fixed exercise helps you to exercise the parts of your brain that are needed for improvising without throwing you completely in the deep end. Another exercise he mentions is to play a 1235 or 1535 pattern around the cycle, alternating at random between 1235 and 1535 at random. McNeil describes this particular exercise in more detail in a 2002 journal article for the International Trumpet Guild entitled "Creative Pattern Practice" which is worth scouring the web for - it will give you a good taste of his writing style and his way of thinking about improvisation.

The book also comes with a CD demonstrating some of the exercises and etudes so you can hear what they sound like when performed correctly.

John McNeil is a highly respected Jazz trumpeter and his book is a classic that every aspiring jazz trumpet player should own. I love this book and use it often.

I received this book not long ago, and as an experienced jazz and classical player, it fulfilled the purpose I purchased it for. That is, it's a technical method book for jazz. It won't give you any new ideas *probably* and it certainly doesn't have a lot of "patterns" to transpose or advanced jazz theory and such, but what it does well is that it focuses on the most common "problem" areas for jazz technique. That is, articulation, finger dexterity, and key familiarity. There is also a section on "wide intervals" for jazz, but IMHO this was a nice addition, but not as important (to me) as the other sections. I consider myself to be a strong player (don't we all) and I thought this book did a good job of zeroing in on my weak areas, and providing practical, tough exercises to improve them.

Don't think of this book as an endall "how to" to play jazz anymore than you would consider any single classical method the "endall" to classical music. Jazz is a language to be learned by listening and playing, this is a book to improve your facility with jazz to make your final goal easier. A method book in the truest sense.

I'd recommend the use of this book in conjunction with ear training or playalongs ie... Aebersold.

I only wish I had found this book years ago when I began studying jazz trumpet. If I had, I'd already have these tips under my fingers. The book gives some *great* bebop lines/patterns in all keys. I'd say it is the H.L Clark Technical Studies for the jazz trumpet player. Also includes some cool suggestions for alternative fingering riffs - think Lee Morgan. The CD gives you something to hear, model yourself after and strive for. I'm totally sold.

This book is great! The articulation studies are hip and tricky, and you can actually use them in a "real life situation". There are also some interesting articles on various jazz trumpeters. I highly recommend this book.

Without a doubt, John McNeil has done something with this book that has long been overdue. With the advent of jazz education, so much focus has been put on what to play, rather than on how to play it. McNeil presents exercises that go beyond the simple articulation of scales and puts them in real world situations. Furthermore, the author addresses technique issues that most other jazz trumpet books fail to even acknowledge exist. The section on alternate fingerings and different ways of tonging, that are so important to today's jazz improviser, are throughly covered through simple explanation and execution. Not to mention, the accompanying CD has several examples being performed by astute trumpet players who play through them with the ease of a basic stamp warm-up routine.

Quite possibly, the most important part of the book is the section on finger technique. With three pages full of finger twisters for the jazz trumpet player to navigate, the trumpet player will find more fluidity in their performance, resulting in better solos and overall better trumpet facility. This book should be required to be used by every trumpet player, commercial or not. The result will be a much more technically proficient musician, no longer hindered by a lack of technique, but rather, aided by a plethora of it.

This book (with accompanying CD) is e great resource for training in improve technique fundamentals. The exercises will help you develop lip and finger flexibility as well as a good sense of accent and flow. John's written introduction to the history of Jazz Trumpet is exceptionally well written and whether you agree with all of his views or not he writes nearly as well as he plays! I frequently use this book as an exercise book to travel with when I don't want to carry a stack of practice material. Players young and old who want to develop their Jazz chops will benefit from its use.

This book does has some interesting biographies in it, but that is not the purpose behind this book. I bought this expecting a book that would give me some ideas on improvisation and jazz style. All this book delivers is some ideas that pertain strictly to Bebop. If you like playing that side of the horn then this is a good book, but it certainly is not advertised as such. It does; however provide some challenging sight reading material, but again, that is not what this book is advertised to be. The exercises are not in the least bit hip, and all in all this was just a poor investment. The author even advises to steer away from wide intervals, calling them "unpractical", which is absolute nonsense! Maybe if you only have a two octave range as the authors playing on the CD suggests, but for those of us with a good solid three or more octaves wide intervals are effective and quite practical. Do yourself a favor, and invest in an Arban's Book, Clarke Book, The Jazz Theory Book, and LOTS of Basie, Armstrong, Maynard Ferguson CDs. I especially recommend, Count Basie - Basie In Europe and Buddy Rich - Rich in London.