Customer Reviews

Jazz Gems C CD/PKG

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Here's a jazz play-along book that doesn't leave the beginner in the dust, but still gives the intermediate player some challenging chord changes.

I've found it a much more fun and friendly place to start than the Jamey Abersold books, and have made much more progress as an improviser than I was able to with the Abersold series.

No theory is presented. If you have an idea of what jazz is about in your ears, you can use this book/CD set to practice your skills at improvisation. (Beginners will also love Mantooth's From the Beginning, and then Movin' on to the Blues. These books don't provide tunes, just progressively more difficult etude-like patterns to practice with a rhythm section.)

The best thing about all the Mantooth books is that the CD includes the head (tune) played by ordinary jazz musicians, not by one of the jazz greats. You don't even have to know how to read music to use these books! Classically trained musicians can hear how written music is interpreted in jazz style these days, and play along with it, before playing their own choruses (improvisations).

These are exactly the skills that are essential to read a jazz chart, or use a fake book, and play jazz with conviction and style.

In Jazz Gems tunes range from very easy to fairly challenging. If you don't know some of them you will fall in love with them as you're learning. The most famous tunes included are Bluesette, Satin Doll and Tangerine.

And if that weren't enough, the price of these books couldn't be more reasonable.