Customer Reviews

The Herb Ellis Jazz Guitar Method : Swing Blues

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If you're into learning Ellis' uptown beboppy swing style, you should investigate this book. The "how to" part is pretty brief, going over a few of the CAGED shapes, scales and arpeggios as they apply to dominant and 9th chords, plus a look at chromatics. But it's what Ellis does with this that makes the book a great resource. He lays out three long multi-chorus blues solos with various tempos and feels, and it's pretty much the sort of playing you'd hear on one of his records. They're all transcribed and annoted in places with the shapes particular lines were built on. Ellis is a master of taste, timing and melodic bluesy lines, and this book showcases all of that. Check it out.

This is the best way I know to learn to play swing blues jazz solos. Ellis keeps the theory to a minimum, instead providing choruses of blues in C, F, and Bb for players to master while visualizing the chord shapes the lines are built from.

Though a previous reviewer referred to these as "CAGED" shapes (--which Joe Pass also does), that's a misnomer. Ellis is working out of the shapes Charlie Christian used, and they are F, D, and A.

What's great about the solos Ellis performs here is that a player can use them with play-alongs (or home made recordings) of blues at several tempos, and in other keys too (-which requires transposing, but that's easily done once one grasps the *shapes* the solos are built on.)

I've learned several Charlie Christian solos note for note---and recommend other players do that too---but they aren't much help unless one is playing the tunes CC soloed over, as his blues tended to have augmented changes and pre-set arrangments few players will use on the bandstand.

It's easy to plug in one or two choruses from these solos into a performance of, say, Blue Monk, Back at the Chicken Shack, Tenor Madness, Billie's Bounce, or a multitude of other jazz staples.

The value of this book is in the 3 sample blues that Herb plays - it really is a lesson in how to swing. Most of the time Herb is playing single eighth-note lines, and despite the absence of piano, bass, or even another guitar on the CD tracks, Herb really drives.

There are a few mistakes in the transcription, both in the standard notation and tablature, but they are easily fixed - I would have like to see more time spent in preparation of the book. There are places when parts of the solos are more easily played using the next higher position, where the notes lie right under the fingers.

These are great solos, with a heavy Charlie Christian influence. This book is well within the grasp of an intermediate guitarist. I really enjoyed this book.

This is a book for beginners who are intrested in Jazz guitar solo and comping on blues by Herb Ellis Method. It introduce it's Shape System which is simply how to play scale and chord arpeggio by shape.

The materials are few in this book. It mentioned only 1.how to paly Maj and 7 chords/scale/Arpeggio. 2.1 baisc progression and changes. 3. examples - 3 blues(solo) songs.

Though m/dim/m7b5/... could be derived from the same concept, this book only introduce how to play chord/scale/arpeggio 'by shape' over Maj and Seven.

For beginner this is a guide for chord/scale system. For people who already knew chord/scale system this book is nothing new, except the 3 improvised solo. "Joe Pass on Guitar" has more stuff in similar topics. Recommend only for beginners and people who are intrested in Herb Ellis's style.