Mel Bay's Complete Book Jazz Guitar: Lines & Phrases [Paperback]

Sid Jacobs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1996

An important addition to the improvising jazz guitarist's library, this thoughtful blend of text and musical examples focuses on the vocabulary of modern jazz and some of the applications of modern harmony. With examples written in standard notation and tablature, Jacobs offers instruction on bebop style phrases, playing fourths, inside-outside playing, pentatonic, whole-tone and symmetrical scales, slash chords, polychords, hip lines, fingerings and much more. The companion CD presents the material in the text played with chord accompaniment.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Mel Bay Pubns (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786617926
• ISBN-13: 978-0786617920
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,924,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!, April 2, 2007

By 

Tolga Guven (Turkey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mel Bay's Complete Book Jazz Guitar: Lines & Phrases (Paperback)

This is a great book, especially for the guitarists who have done their homework on scales-arpeggios and look for a way to start bulding jazz vocabulary with that material. The book grabs you from the start; the introduction section named "The Craft" gives you very practical and musical ways to embellish your typical triads and diatonic scales with chromatic and diatonic passing tones. For the hardworking player, these a few pages provide tons of practical material to be applied to scales and triads and you can start sounding jazzy right away, this part alone is worth the price and that is just the beginning! Beware that this book does not include beginner level information though, so you should know your major and melodic minor scales and basic triads to get the most out of this material. The book continues to present typical bebop language "idioms" on different chord types and they sound very musical. These are not some hot licks invented by the author, they are definitely classical bebop ideas that are in every good jazz musician's arsenal. You will find all your favorite licks in there! Plus, Jacobs provides tablature as well and and his ideas suit very naturally to guitar fingerboard.
After the bebop oriented section (it lasts about 50 pages and if you can assimilate all the ideas in there, you are on your well on your way to start improvising in jazz language), Jacobs moves onto more modern sounds, such as applying pentatonic scales and fourths to produce modern and "outside" ideas. The third section adresses symmetrical scales including the augmented, whole-tone and diminished scales. In these sections Jacobs provide theoretical explanation as well (unlike the first section where you are expected to know and understand theory fundamentals, but Jacobs' other books adresses these issues as well, so you might want to check them out) and the fingerings he provides are extremely practical to get you started playing those unusual scales. Finally he addresses polychords at the end of the book. The book definitely delivers what its title promises, so what you see is what you get. If you have been loooking for a guitar oriented book to start playing the jazz language right away, this is what you have been looking for.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sid on a looper, September 13, 2008

By 

Slo-Hand - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Mel Bay's Complete Book Jazz Guitar: Lines & Phrases (Paperback)

I had to order the CD that goes with this book from Mel Bay for 10 bucks and you get Sid Jacobs on a looper going thru the material quickly. I don't think I would classify this book as beginning level because the theory can get pretty dense but Mel Bay classifies it as beginner's level. Sid tries to teach you how to put jazz lines together from fragments with mixed results I think. You will get some lines that you'll use but there are better books for licks. Sid composed 4 etudes for this book and recorded 2 of those etudes('Another Blues in F' and 'Blues For Poly'). For me, that was where the most value in the book was so if the other two etudes had been recorded it would have been all the better. I do like this book because you get a technical discourse on jazz from an accomplished player with many examples and from the CD you get a sense of this man's work ethic which is extraordinary. Sid Jacob's will get you thinking about what it is that you are doing when you play jazz. For pure licks I recommend 1001 jazz licks(cHERRY Lane Publishing and 1001 Blues Licks by the same publisher). Beware these books have no CD and are not tabbed out for you but there is enough room left under each lick for you to draw a tab staff if you are a guitarist. This book is tabbed out for you and it's a good instructional experience,unique to this author.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best jazz guitar book I've ever used., June 23, 2005

By 

R. Golden - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mel Bay's Complete Book Jazz Guitar: Lines & Phrases (Paperback)

I have dozens of books on jazz guitar. Method books. Books of licks. This is the best one I've found. Includes dozens of simple concepts that can be easily digested and incorporated into your playing. Highly recommended.