Product Description

One of the easiest and most practical approaches to jazz guitar on the market today, this method thoroughly covers the basics for jazz guitar solo performance, including: theory, scales, chords, phrasing, passing tones, and much more. This highly acclaimed study of jazz rhythm chords and their application contains extensive instruction on jazz chord accompaniment and chord substitution. The "user-friendly" text utilizes a "lesson style format" which makes it perfect for both individual study and as a classroom text. Penned by professional jazz guitarist Ronny Lee, this text is highly recommended to anyone who desires a thorough, well-graded course of study for jazz guitar. Written in standard notation with chord symbols and diagrams.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60738 in Books
• Published on: 1993-10-01
• Released on: 1993-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

Customer Reviews

Good foundation for chords
The chord section of Lee's book is very logical and builds up from triads, giving the student a very complete understanding of the basic building blocks of harmony. The chapters concerning solo playing are approached in a similar way, so they only scratch the surface in a very guitaristic way of moving pre-set melodic items around according to the changes. For chords, it is one of the most logical approaches I've seen so far.

Dated, but still the best I've seen
When I bought this book initially I thought, hmm what can a guy with sideburns as big as Elvis teach me now. Boy was I SOOOO wrong!

This book is the most logical method I have ever seen for teaching Jazz chord voicings. I really didn't get it till I worked through this book.

It's worth EVERY penny.

Much Better Than It Appears and a Bargain
I bought the rhythm part of this book standalone years ago and often wondered why I've only heard it mentioned once in an interview. It didn't survive a house move and I ended up buying a second copy of the combined edition.

Mel Bay should market this one specifically toward players who want to learn swing, western swing, and bop-style 3 and 4 note comping and moving harmonized bass lines. It's far more thorough on the subject than a lot of existing volumes, covering inversions, substitutions and extensions up to 11th and 13th chords with altered tensions. The book provides context in the form of progressions with chords as they might appear in sheet music. It's a nice combination of physical drill and theoretical explanation.

That said, part one on single note playing is very elementary, very dated and not very interesting. If your interest is primarily line playing, I'd look elsewhere. But if you're into chords, particularly in a swing or western swing setting, there's a lot of good stuff here that'll reward the effort. Part 2 alone is worth the price of the book.