Mel Bay Kurt Rosenwinkel Compositions [Spiral-bound]

Kurt Rosenwinkel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 20, 2006

Jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel has been pushing the jazz envelope for more than a decade and is recognized as one of today's premier soloists and composers. This book showcases solo transcriptions of Kurt's critically acclaimed album "Deep Song" as well as lead sheets for many of Kurt's personal favorite tunes presented in standard notation and tablature. The book is personalized with photos of Kurt's tours and recording sessions and is a valuable collection of modern jazz guitar.

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 80 pages
• Publisher: Mel Bay Publications, Inc. (December 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078667461X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786674619
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 8.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #320,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too Many Mistakes, October 10, 2009

By 

D. salmon - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mel Bay Kurt Rosenwinkel Compositions (Spiral-bound)

The book is helpful in pointing you in the right direction, but you'll still have to do a fair amount of transcribing to nail the tunes exactly. The solos are generally good, but the chord symbols are often incorrect. Other times the symbols are presented in a non-intuitive fashion (i.e. C#7(Maj7)(#5)).

In order to get working lead sheets for my group I pretty much had to transcribe all the tunes from scratch. I'd like my 20 bucks back.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard tunes., February 22, 2009

By 

guitbox "guitbox" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mel Bay Kurt Rosenwinkel Compositions (Spiral-bound)

I bought this book of course loving Kurt's music and possessing a great deal of zeal and desire to learn many of his tunes. Whew! That zeal was quickly re-evaluated. These MFs are are HARD to play, but they are rewarding and challenging creatively once you begin to feel comfortable with the changes (a task which, with most of the tunes, is not really possible on one read-through). If you are looking for something to immediately impact your playing, this might not be the book for you; this is the type of loaded product, however, that potentially supports long-term growth as a musician.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally!, May 12, 2007

By 

Tommy Collins "elchivo" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mel Bay Kurt Rosenwinkel Compositions (Spiral-bound)

Kurt Rosenwinkel is one of the most creative and original guitar players on the jazz scene today. I think the only reason it has taken this long to come out with a book of his transcriptions is because they needed to find somebody who could take on that monumental task (Chuck Stevens-amazing job). The book contains lead sheets from "Deep Song" as well as several selections from past albums. The selections from his past albums are all excellent choices, for example "East Coast Love Affair" and "Zhivago". The music is written in lead sheet form, bass parts, tabs (solos only), and piano parts (piano for three selections only).
The guitar voicings used by Kurt are not written out so using the lead sheets in conjunction with the recording is a must. The written out solos are a really nice feature of this book. The entire solo is written out in tabs, which really helps when determining positions.
In the "selected Kurt Rosenwinkel compositions" section only the basic lead sheets are included and this is where I wish they included a little more. For example, in "Zhivago", Kurt's intro solo is not included and there are some tricky things he is doing with voicings and alternate tunings (I think) which are not included. Also, it would have been nice to have a little bit of analysis of his style and writing. Maybe some brief words about the chord progressions and his creative use of the melodic minor modes.
Other than that, I love this book. There is enough material to keep one busy for many years.