Product Description

A step-by-step approach to solo jazz improvisation for piano. Learn to improvise using the techniques pioneered by piano greats Lenny Tristano and Dave McKenna. This methodical approach to learning the art of solo jazz piano improvisation will free your creative sense of music. It begins with a review of chord symbol interpretation, walks through bass line development, and ends with how to play several melodic lines simultaneously in stimulating musical conversation. You'll learn how to develop solos that embellish and support the melody, and use lead sheets to help you generate your own musical ideas. Twenty-one lessons present techniques, practice exercises, and tunes based on jazz standards. Notated transcriptions of sample improvisations illustrate each lesson's technique, and the accompanying CD lets you hear a master improviser put these ideas to work.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39198 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 310 pages

Customer Reviews

It is an excellent book!
The book is very well organized. There is no deception on the part of the author or the publisher to sell this book. The details of the book clearly let you know what the book covers. As a student of jazz piano, intermediate, I find this book very helpful. I really like the way the author introduces the concepts and then gives examples and etudes to practice. It is one of the best jazz piano books I've bought. But it is not the only book I use to learn how to play jazz piano. You should have an open mind and study all you can from different books in order to progress musically. You'll find similarities in jazz beginner/intermediate piano books, but the good books, like this one, provide you with the proper guidance you need. In my opinion, Neil Olmstead "poured his heart out" in this book. As a music educator myself, I really appreciate the great effort Professor Olmstead put into writing this outstanding book.
In order to get another great insight on jazz piano improvisation, I also highly recommend the following book:
Mel Bay's Essential Jazz Lines: Piano Style of Bill Evans One of the authors of this book, Per Danielsson, offers a lot of great free guidance on jazz piano on the internet. Check out his web site.

I'm currently studying both books and I'm highly motivated to practice. Good luck with your jazz piano learning journey.

This book works against itself
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.)

Ok if you are new to jazz piano
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.