Customer Reviews

Mel Bay Essential Jazz Lines in the Style of Grant Green for Guitar

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Be very careful about this book. It claims to be "essential jazz lines in the style of Grant Green" but it's no such thing. Jazz and blues scales are listed, but they are very general and not specifically characteristic of GG, and the cd contains guitar licks that GG virtually never used. You might learn a thing or two about jazz in this -- though the explanations are very limited -- but nothing about the style of guitar playing associated with GG and other similar guitarists.

Allthough the cover looks nice, the contents of this book are, to say the least, very "meager" and does not really give in insight into the beautiful playing of the late Grant Green. The accompanying CD is a waste of money and effort.

The past reviews I believe are too critical... In the style of means that the licks in the book are similar but not necessarily riffs taken from grant green. The book is meant to learn more in the style of Grant Green and be able to practice the riffs/ideas in different keys hence the cd (Which I didn't find useless as I used the cd) If you listen to Grant Green you do find that he uses the blues scale frequently and the slide pull off technique described in the book is used in almost every Green song and a ton of his licks.

Also people not happy with this book should read the descriptions of the book first as Corey Christiansen has done a number of books in this series. Its not to get you to sound like Grant Green (transcribe all his songs if this is what you want) its to incorporate some of the important elements of the greats into your style. You need to develop your own ideas for this series of books to help. (I know shocking!)