Customer Reviews

Solo Jazz Piano: The Linear Approach

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm a serious amateur jazz pianist who has long noticed that most other jazz piano books--including Mark's Levine's excellent "Jazz Piano Book"--assume you're always playing in a trio or larger ensemble. Consequently, they say very little about the unique problems of solo playing, bass lines, etc. This very well written and organized book contains the best instructional foundation for playing solo jazz piano I've seen anywhere. I had been looking for a book like this for about a decade without success because it was published relatively recently.

After several years of study from Levine's book and others in conjunction with occasional lessons from a couple of good teachers, I decided to study almost exclusively from this book on my own for awhile about a year ago. My solo playing has definitely improved a lot, and studying bass lines in depth seems to have improved my musical ear somehow, making it easier to improvise strong lines in the right hand.

Each chapter of "Solo Jazz Piano" begins with a clear, succinct presentation of the theory that will be drilled throughout the remainder of that chapter. This is generally followed by an etude written out in full (both clefs) that allows the student to feel what it's like to apply the theory immediately. I've learned a lot by analyzing the author's etudes. The etude is then followed by a leadsheet (usually with chord changes the same as or similar to those of the etude). The student is then directed to create an arrangement using the newly learned theory (and techniques learned in prior chapters) to create an original arrangement of the leadsheet. This system is very effective and helps the concepts "stick" in the student's mind, in my opinion. The first part of the book also includes an excellent review of basic chord theory. Once the study of bass lines begins, the author does not abandon the study and use of chords. On the contrary, he reminds the student to play 'comping arrangements in which the left hand plays a bass line and the right hand plays well-voice-led 'comping chords in addition to the usual excercises in which the student plays the melody (with or without added voices in the right hand) and a left-hand bass line. This ensures a well-rounded approach. My only criticism of this book is that it should have been spiral bound like Mark Levine's "Jazz Theory Book" for easier use at the piano.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone desiring to learn how to play SOLO jazz piano. For those just beginning to learn jazz improvisation, I also recommend "The Joy of Improv" (two volumes) by Dave Frank and "How to Improvise" by Hal Crook. Both Dave and Hal have also been faculty at Berklee College of Music.

Neil Olmstead offers one of the most complete jazz piano approaches I have ever seen, and I have a good collection of quality books. All exercises are clearly explained, and there is plenty to work on, so expect to use it for a long time. This book is designed for dedicated enthusiasts and professionals alike. Mr. Olmstead's teaching experience at Berklee combined with his taste, knowledge, and ability contribute to this unique approach to enhancing jazz skills at the piano. His stated influences for his method are Dave McKenna and Lennie Tristano, and if you're familiar with these artists (and you don't have to be; anyone can benefit), you'll want help in analyzing their incredible styles and techniques. The book opens by helping you to arrange appropriate chord voicings--with both hands and the left hand alone. You'll practice comping while recognizing and employing common extensions. The book not only recommends harmonizing melodies--it guides you to the next step which is key to any jazz musician: improvising over the changes with a solid, complementary left hand technique. Gradually, bass line development is helpfully presented. The etudes offer left hand arrangements rarely seen in other books. You'll gain insight to help you with your own ideas. All the tunes are based on real jazz standards, and they are often written in three different formats to give you the scope you need to assimilate them. For example, the first version might give you a full arrangement (left hand nuances written); the second, just the chord changes and and an embellished melody; a third might request that you work on a bass line/ and or comping idea. To top it off, you get a demonstration CD with improvisation samples.
The later chapters get progressively sophisticated with ideas on how to change meter, and how to play ballads with a swing feel and vice versa.
The print is of high quality--though I wish the book were spiral-bound because it is thick.
I take my time with it; there is so much in it, and it is fun. There are many resources that I use for my practice routine, and this one is about as thorough as you can get, especially since it focuses exclusively on solo jazz piano. Some books assume you are always part of a band. So if you are ready to work and enjoy doing it, this volume is for you.

I must admit that I'm only on chapter four, but so far this book exactly what the doctor ordered for me. You should be at least an intermediate reader if you want to benifit from the book as it's big strength, IMHO, is that it gives you nice etudes that are examples of the concepts it's trying to show you, then let's you try your own creation. However, I'm sort of barely at this level of reading but have no problem with the etudes so far, and it's actually good reading practice for me at the same time. So hopefully that's encouraging to the intermediate readers out there. Another thing to note is that the books main focus seems to be contrupuntal playing with both hands playing their own parts/melodies. Hence, most of the left hand work (after the first couple chapters), is on variations of walking bass starting with half note ballady lines, then quarter note swing, and then it goes into a bunch of other styles like latin, waltz, etc., and then even improving in the right hand over walking bass. I'm sure I'm leaving a lot out as I'm only on chapter four, but I feel this book really does deserve an early high rating from me as I'm already satisfied with what I've been able to learn from the first few chapters.

Probably not really a beginners or advanced level players book...probably intermediate to advanced intermediate, or advanced players that are inexperienced with counterpoint and/or solo playing. Hope my review helps

The content of the book and CD is fantastic, see the other reviews for more info. Unfortunately, the binding of the book is useless, especially when you try to set it on your pianos' music stand and have it stay open. The first time I used it, pages started coming loose like they were never attached. I guess I'll keep it instead of sending it back, because I like the material, but I'll have to fix it to use it (huge waste of practice time). Really should have been spiral bound - buyer beware.

This book is one of the most practical piano instruction books that I have come come across--the kind of book that you can sit at the piano with and benefit from immediately. It's minimally theoretical, focusing primarily on drills and concepts that are universally applicable. Particularly useful are the sections on baseline motives. I was able to integrate them into my playing instantly. This is not to say that the book is a quick read. There is a lot of information, and many techniques to master. I recommend it to anyone who wishes to improve as a solo pianist.

I bought several books recently to help me class up my fake book renditions (I'm a old rocker. I can read music with effort, but I'm much better at playing fake books), including this and Mark Levine's Jazz Piano. I'm still working through them, so some of this review may evolve over time. Random observations:

* I find the CD only marginally useful.
* The real strength in this book for me is the pacing. It slows me down, forcing me to spend time on fundamentals that I get tempted to skip over to get to the "fun part". It's a lot like having a real piano instructor saying, "Let's learn this first, and we'll get to that other stuff in good time when you're ready." Olmstead's teaching experience really shines through here.
* The slight differences in left hand voicings between Olmstead and Levine (Levine uses VII and III for bottom notes almost exclusively; Olmstead does not) were a little disorienting.
* Olmstead is kind enough to provide complete example songs with the same chord progressions as popular standards. He gives completely scored versions, and fake book renditions, depending on the lesson being taught. Very user-friendly, and no need to go find a fake book that tracks this volume.
* The traditional book binding is very inconvenient - it is hard to keep the book opened for practice and the book gets very beat up over time.
* This book gives a LOT of attention to walking bass lines, with very good explanations. It could be beneficial to beginning bass players despite the "solo piano" title. Even though I did not feel like I lacked in this area, I found this section worthwhile, and helpful to give me a vocabulary to communicate better with bass players.
* Due to the attention paid to the fundamentals, constructing strong improvised melody lines and interesting chord voicings don't get much attention.
* At a certain point the book jumps from basics to creating multi-part basslines and gets pretty advanced in parts. Even so, the author remains true to his promise and lays out the concepts clearly before throwing the student in the deep end of the pool.

This book and Levine's give you two perspectives on the same elephant. Both are valuable, and neither is really complete on its own (nor are they complete when combined). There is less overlap between the two books than one might expect. This book would be particularly gratifying to proficient music readers, because so much is written out, while Levine's is more gratifying to me because I take what he gives me and apply it to my fake books. We should all work on our weaknesses, so it is good that this book forces me to read music. This book and some hard work will do a fine job at creating the foundation of skills and knowledge that the author sets out to build.

I was looking for some ideas to improve my solo jazz piano playing, but found that if you are in any way a performing jazz pianist, you will find most of the exercises in this book are already familiar to you. It focuses a lot on walking bass lines. I was hoping for a little more in the way of ideas for intros reharm and such. A good book if you are not all too familiar with jazz piano playing, but not for anyone who is at more than intermediate level.

This book has a wealth of information for people who want to develop their left hand in order to play solo jazz piano. The problem is, the author expects the reader to laboriously plow through tons of non-intuitive etudes with strange right-hand melodic lines in order to practice his techniques. It would be much more helpful, and much less confusing, if the author just provided left-hand etudes, or less unorthodox melody lines for the right hand. I was excited to approach this book, but I was really looking for a much more straightforward approach. (If I wanted to learn to play like Tristano, I would transcribe a difficult Tristano solo.)

I was genuinely surprised by the quality of this work. I am a classical pianist who has dabbled in jazz from time to time. This book, together with the Mark Levine's books (Jazz Theory, Jazz Piano, and Masterclass) have gotten me psyched up about jazz. Years ago, jazz books seemed a muddle to me (for example John mehegan's 4-book series and David Baker's stuff), mostly because I came from the classical 18th-19th century theoretical background. The only thing that worked for me was studying LPs until they wore out (my age is showing). I still study CDs deeply, but these books really help to fill gaps, at least as far as analysis goes. There is very useful information in this volume.

As another reviewer noted, there are no note-for-note transcriptions of the examples on the CD. That would have been easy to do, since the examples are quite simple. The examples sound good, but if you want to figure out how to do it exactly like the sample, you must transcribe it yourself. You may as well just transcribe someone's playing on a CD. This omission of the transcriptions is frustrating.

Second the style of solo playing is pretty limited here. The first two chapters deal with playing different inversions of the chord in the left hand while playing a single note melody (or improvisation) in the right. The rest deal with playing a single note bass line in the left and the melody and occasional chords in the right. That's fine, but perhaps not worth an entire book. I was hoping for something that would make me a more rounded solo pianist.

Third, the other reviewers are right that this book just falls apart. I haven't used it much (for the reasons above), and the pages are coming out.

If you're willing to deal with the frustration #1, are happy with just those two styles, and willing to have it rebound with a comb binding, then the book is OK.

I've revised this review up to three stars, because despite the above problems, you can learn a lot from it.