Mel Bay's Advanced Jazz Guitar Improvisation [Paperback]

Barry Greene (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 2004

Written for the intermediate to advanced jazz guitarist, this book assumes an adequate knowledge of chord scales and jazz theory. The topics include playing modally, chord substitutions, Coltrane substitutions, diminished and melodic minor scales as well as dealing with pentatonics. Companion CD included.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Barry Greene began playing guitar in 1971,at the age of ten years old. Strongly influenced by Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, George Benson and Pat Martino, Barry has developed into a world-class guitarist, arranger and composer. He has recorded or performed with such artists as Tim Hagens, Danny Gottlieb, Gene Bertoncinni, Scott Wendholt, Kenny Drew Jr., Adam Nussbaum, Warren Berndhardt, Russell Malone, Ron Affif, and Colin Bailey. Barry has six CD s out as a leader. Sojourner , At Home , Urban Jazz ,"In the Meantime" and the recently released Barry Greene Trio and The Other Side . Just Jazz Guitar Magazine says, his improvisations were creative with impeccable technique... 20th Century Guitar wrote, it has all the urgency of the best of Pat Martino's work... and allaboutjazz.com had to say, ...an excellent player, a superior musician with power to spare... Barry has several books published with Mel Bay Publications. He continues to endorse Thomastik-Infeld strings, Clarus amplifiers, Raezors Edge speaker cabinets, and Benedetto Guitars. He has performed at the Long Island Guitar Show held in New York, five times, and has been an instructor at the prestigious National Guitar Workshop held each summer in Connecticut for eight summers. Barry is a Professor of Jazz Guitar at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, where he has been since 1995. He teaches a guitar ensemble, as well as applied guitar, jazz history, improvisation and a course on recording with Pro Tools.

Product Details

• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: Mel Bay Publications, Inc. (January 16, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078667170X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786671700
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 8.8 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #702,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Short and sweet, March 14, 2007

By 

Beagle (Sydney) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mel Bay's Advanced Jazz Guitar Improvisation (Paperback)

This book is extremely short but packed with useful information and interesting examples. The level is fairly advanced and you'll need to be able to read music - there is no tablature.

The author starts off showing how to using the major pentatonic scale (i.e. 1,2,3,5,6) starting from different notes, allowing various chord extensions to be accessed (e.g. play the C maj pentatonic scale over an FMaj7 chord and you get the 5,6,7,9,3). Strangely he then discusses the minor pentatonic scale as if it were a separate beast, when it is of course just an inversion of the major pentatonic scale (C Maj pent = A Min pent). It seems odd that he didn't at least mention this.

He then goes on to discuss modes of the melodic minor and some useful ways of thinking about them and getting the sounds into your head. I've always had trouble getting the hang of these modes and Barry's ideas are very helpful.

The remaining chapters cover interesting ideas and examples for the diminished scale, modal playing, harmonic substitution and Coltrane changes.

The material is appropriate to all instrumentalists and not just guitarists. The CD that comes with the book has Barry playing the examples (note it is not a playalong).

I found more in this short book than I have found in much larger volumes. Although I was familiar with much of the content already to some degree, I found that Barry's explanations and examples really help to turn it from theory into music. There is enough in here to keep me busy for a long time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jammable Jazz, February 24, 2007

By 

Slo-Hand - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mel Bay's Advanced Jazz Guitar Improvisation (Paperback)

This is one of my favorite jazz books(probably top 5) and I have alot of them. I like it because of the nuts and bolts practical approach used. There's no extraneous theory to confuse or obfuscate the lessons which are straightforward and I might add, highly jammable. Also you get many 16 bar improvisations from a talented accomplished player. That's something you really can't put a value on. The 1st example sounds almost like a jazz head melody to me with a little ending thrown in for good measure.So you can jam on the progression and use what the author improvised as a head. The progression is major 7 chords a major 3rd apart alternating every 4 bars. He gives you one pentatonic device not containing the root and then in example 2 he gives you another pentatonic example which essentially treats the major 7 chords as 4 chords because of the sharp 11's in the device.. Then he does a similar thing with minor 9 chords a minor 3rd apart, giving you two 16 bar improvised examples with each pentatonic formula. From there it proceeds in a similar fashion to other concepts outlined in the editorial review. The only thing really advanced about this book is there's no tablature and no extraneous ink wasted on theory. Tablature adds expense,is spoonfeeding(you'll own the music more if you have to figure out how to play it yourself) and only somewhat necessary if there's alot of bends,hammers etc. like in 'Blues By The Bar' which are tedious to notate on one staff. I tape little pieces of staff paper in the book and tab the examples out for myself. As far as theory goes, it's over-rated ! If you're an intermediate player who can read notes and rhythms you'll benefit from a player's perspective. This book/CD should hold or increase it's value over time. The CD has excellent sound quality but no music minus me tracks which is okay. There's alot to be learned here but you must be pro-active.