Customer Reviews

Greg Fishman - Jazz Saxophone Etudes

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This is an excellent etude book. The music is very hip and the packaging is excellent. I use both of Fishman's books for reading exercises, but they are also a good source of patterns. The tempos are fast, but I don't really know anyone who needs practice reading very slowly... right? Besides, if you must, simply practice reading them at slower tempos without the CD, and work them up to speed. Be not proud: you probably read better than I! I also highly recommend this and his other book, Jazz Saxophone Duets. Both of these books are great. I'd compare these to the Neihaus etudes, but with more rhythmic diversity and more bebop harmonies. Rumor has it that he's got a 3rd book just published. I have not seen it, but certainly I recommend the first 2 books without hesitation. I'm getting the 3rd one as soon as I can find it.

These are really enjoyable pieces and the backing CDs-both e flat and b flat- have been beautifully recorded with an exciting backing group. However, some of the faster pieces need an intermediate speed to help people like me to build up the pace.

(This can be done just using a pc to reduce the speed by about 25% but maintain the proper pitches.) This would make a huge difference. It is a great shame, otherwise it would be really quite excellent.

I'm looking for challenging music to play but this book is too tough to get through. I'm not sure that any of the numbers really have a tune to them, they're basically very advanced modern jazz solos, and as solos they don't seem to go anywhere either - I'm sure they're meaningful to the composer and would work if he'd spontaneously improvised them, but they're not something a player would particularly want to replicate unless you're really into complex jazz. I haven't even attempted to play along with the CD and by the looks of the book there are several repeats of the long pieces to improvise over, but that's too much empty space for me, I prefer a few dozen bars of improvisation.