Customer Reviews

Creative Jazz Improvisation

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I worked with the 2nd Edition and can't comment on recent revisions, but I have to disagree with a couple of points made by prior reviewers. Regarding the "obscurity" of the transcribed solos, while the Smithsonian Collection that Reeves draws about half his examples from is, to my knowledge, no longer available, most if not all of the selections are available on recordings under the various musicians' names. Many are considered jazz touchstones and even masterpieces (i.e. Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens, Sonny Rollins Saxophone Collossus). I'd go so far to say that anyone interested in the broad scope of jazz history will probably have a fair number of the examples already in their collection. The other point I'd take issue with is the suitability of the book for self-study. Perhaps it's not a book for an absolute beginner as a player or a listener of jazz, but for musicians with the ability to read and an understanding of jazz feel, the book provides a wealth of material to explore in ways beyond simply following the text sequentially as you might do in a class. As a teenager, I spent hours practicing scales up and down to build finger dexterity, hoping against hope that the benefits would show up in creative playing. It didn't happen - though I got pretty good at playing scales, up and down. As an adult I regard that kind of practicing as a waste of time and creativity-numbing. I now see scales as sets of notes with particular tendencies. Playing an entire scale end to end is just one expression of those tendencies (and a very overused one at that). While Reeves gives you the scales and you can run them if you want, much more interesting to me are the patterns and transcriptions that draw on the scale set, in some cases using just a few notes, in others, the full set. Jazz melody (and the pop melody of standards) is built from motives and phrases rather than from whole lengths of scales. For that matter, so is most tonal classical music. It makes sense to me that if your goal is to create that kind of melody as an improvisor or composer, it's more productive to study how the smaller building blocks of motives and phrases work in the context of the tonality expressed by that scale. If you're willing to slow down and stop thinking in terms of "here's a chord now how do I fit this entire scale into this measure" this book contains a lot of useful and fun ideas to work with. Another useful book is "Connections" by Gary Campbell, which focuses exclusively on creating motivic material from scales as an alternative to simply running them. Why 4 stars? Well, one thing I didn't care for is the close tie-in with the Abersold play-along recordings. I used them years ago and now feel you'll learn more by recording your own backgrounds. Like bass players who practice with a full drum machine, it's too easy to ride along on top of a full sounding background and not notice your rhythmic weaknesses. If you play non-chordal instruments it'll help your harmony by learning some keyboard or guitar and a metronome can still go a long way.

This is an excellent text when used in a classroom environment, accompanied with audio examples from a teacher and selected recordings, annotated throughout the text (mostly references to J. Aebersold's Play-Along series). The high-level classification of important jazz innovators in the "Whom to Listen To" section alone is worth a long read. Coverage of the scales, progressions, rhythms and structures is well organized. I can't think of a better single book on which to base class-room teaching of jazz improvisation. Any criticism that this book is "unoriginal" is misplaced; that's not the purpose of the book.

It is definitely less useful as a self-learning tool. For this purpose I believe there is no way around a few book-cd combos such as Ferrara's Jazz Piano and Harmony. Unless you want to spend time tracking down the recordings referred to by this Reeves book.

This book is for any instrument, and the only qualification is that you must know how to play chromatically in two octaves on your instrument. Each chapter is organized around learning a single scale/mode, or on common progressions (ii-V-I) and song forms such as the blues, rhythm changes, and sectional forms. The emphasis is on building proficiency in playing all scales and modes in all twelve keys, and in building a vocabulary (also in all twelve keys) through the practice of licks and by learning the transcribed solos. I think anyone serious about learning jazz would benefit from this book; at a minimum, it will provide explanations of scales and their use for reference, and as a source of exercises and patterns for years to come.

This book has an excellent explanation of harmony, keys, modes, scales, chords and music theory of all styles of jazz improvisation. It includes listening exercises, how to practice etc.

The book includes an anthology of famous records with transcriptions of famous jazz solos from Louis Armstrong to contemporary artists.

I have not found a better text book to explain the basic music theory of harmony, chords and scales.

This was designed to be a college textbook but high school level players will learn from this book.

Right off the bat, if you are a beginner in jazz improvisation and are looking for some help in learning about the theory behind jazz from a more basic point of view, you will want to use "Creative Beginning" Creative Beginnings: An Introduction to Jazz Improvisationalso from Scott Reeves. The CD included with that text can also be helpful with this one.

This book is about developing your understanding about jazz improvisation and the chord progressions on which they are most commonly based. However, Reeves wants you to develop a practical facility with this material rather than being satisfied with an abstract intellectual understanding. Everything about the text is designed to help you become so familiar with the material that you can use it without conscious thought. It becomes your language and as normal for you as speech. The book can be used in a variety of ways depending on how many terms (1 to 4) you are studying jazz improvisation. Of course, you can also use it on your own.

The book has twenty-one chapters grouped into five parts.

Part 1 - The Art of Improvisation has three chapters. They cover how to practice jazz and perform jazz (including performance anxiety). How to listen to jazz, who the major historical jazz figures are and what they contributed. And a discussion of rhythm in jazz.

Part 2 - Diatonic Chords and the Modes of the Major Scale. This is a language that jazz uses and while somewhat related to the traditional language you would learn in your core theory curriculum, it is used quite differently. And it certainly has nothing to do with your studies of historical counterpoint. But, if you want to play jazz, this is important material to know and understand. This part has six chapters. You learn about major scales and major 7th chords, mixolydian and bebop, 7th scales, and dominant 7th chords. Dorian scales and minor 7th chords, the ii-V-I progression, Locrian and Aeolian scales, the minor ii diminished 7th - V7- i progressions, and the Lydian and Phrygian scales, major 7th chords with a flat fifth.

Part 3 - Chord Substitutions, Harmonic Structures, and Forms. You are shown the form and scales for Blues and how jazz musicians use "substitutions" to add color and make more interesting musical constructions. This means that you use different chords and harmonies to stand-in for more traditional progressions. Seeing them has substitutions rather than as something new and different helps the jazz musician understand their function and relation to the core progressions you learned earlier. You also are shown about sectional forms and rhythmic variants, harmonic structures, and the substitutions John Coltrane created. The author also takes you into free improvisation.

Part 4 - Altered Chords, Diminished Modes, Whole-tone and Harmonic Minor Scales, and Melodic Minor Scales. These are more advanced topics, but are not substantively harder than what you have learned before. Rather, it is just providing you with a richer palette to call on in your music making.

Part 5 - Pentatonic Scales and Intervallic Improvisation. These are simply more advanced topics. Again, not because they are harder, but because they are more specialized in use and something you can learn after you have mastered the constantly used core material.

I like the way the book is spiral bound so it can be laid flat on your music rack or stand so you can practice the exercises until you have them memorized. It is a durable and thoroughly practical book that will provide you with rich returns if you use it intelligently and put in as much work as you need to truly master the material.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

This book is a must for anyone learning Jazz. It covers just about all theoretical aspects essential to playing Jazz. Mastery of the concepts covered in this book would ensure a well rounded player. The thing I like the most is that each chapter has a solo in it and also most of the licks come out of solo's not just ones that he made up.

Agreed. This is a good reference book, but if you're a beginner, make sure you've got a good teacher - otherwise, you'll be lost trying to translate theory into real-life application.

Chapters consist of apx 2-4 pages of theory, and then transcribed jazz solos 'illustrating' that chapter's theory.

The theory explanations are great! ...but the transcribed solos are hard to learn from, if you're a beginner.

Students, if you HAVE to buy this book for school, consider getting a 'play-along' book to go along with it - a book with practical explanations, examples, and exercises. (I discovered a great one - alas - at the end of the semester: Jamey Aebersold's How to Play and Improvise Jazz).

This book has the examples, exercises, etc. that will help you master each concept.

Good luck!

The approach in this book is like most of the other books on jazz; there are a bunch of scales and modes that "work" over chords with no explanation of how to make them work. This is a good reference book and that is really all and if you already studied music at all it is really basic stuff. There are a number of transcribed solos which are nice, but most of the other transcribed ideas are a few bars long and relatively useless. There are a couple of decent chapters that get into some common chord substitutions but this book is pretty useless as a guide in learning how to structure and build a solo.

I am wondering why this book contains some jazz solo transcriptions of "hard-to-find" recordings. Does the author think light of listening to/learning from actual recording stuff? For example, Woody Shaw's "Child's Dance" is not a good example to learn pentatonic usages in jazz. Why did not the author use Coltrane's "Pursuance" or any McCoy's solo (available from CD market)? Where can students get the "odd-choice Woody Shaw" recording? Never heard of it. I do not buy the author's concept: learning from written solos without listening to recordings. It is stupid!

I do not know why, but there is no copyright agreement notice under the excerpted solo transcriptions. Does the publisher pay for the copyright? I would appreciate if the publisher could show the due-respect for jazz artists by listing the copyright publisher notice.

On the surface, this book seems like a well-organized book; however, most materials of this book text have been repeatedly discussed in the previous jazz books (usually available from Charles Colin, Jamey Aebersold, Hal Leonard, Sher Music, Down Beats articles, Alfred music, etc). In other words, it's well-organized but it's NOT original. For these reasons, I would give only two stars to this book.

Really good, and i was reccomended this by a friend! Never hurts to try something new.