Product Description

A valuable resource for learning the basics of jazz from Mike Steinel of the University of North Texas. It covers the basics of jazz, how to build effective solos, a comprehensive practice routine, and a jazz vocabulary of the masters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #140100 in Books
• Published on: 1995-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 180 pages

Customer Reviews

More theoretical than practical
Man I hate to thrash somebody's book, but after dusting this thing off today to see whether I could get anything new out of it, I feel duty bound to save others from the frustration I experienced.

I got a bachelor's degree for guitar performance, and I have played in rock, blues, country, dance, variety, etc band since I was a kid. I have always felt like I have the right kind of mind for improvisation - I improvise well in those other genres - but I never got bit hard to make a serious study of jazz about 2 years ago. This book was the only book I bought to supplement transcription as my tutor.

So - yeah, first mistake right there. If you want to avoid my bad experience, be smart and buy a bookshelf's worth of books.

Now that I am off the ground as a jazz improviser (tho I wouldn't say good by any broad set of criteria - give me a decade to work on good), I can say that this book seems mislabeled.

I think the ideas in the book are novel and informative, especially for a composer who wanted to analyze jazz solos and make sense out of them - maybe develop a vocabulary of motives and develop them in a familiar classical composition process - but I don't see this a great tool for the woodshed in its current form.

For a new edition, I would like to see less - none, in fact - of the totally abstract permutation stuff like intervals on p19, and much more of the cookbook type stuff starting on p139.

I now understand where this book was coming from, but I simply didn't benefit much from it.

Excellent
The exercises are really helpful. Just bear in mind: You will need a looot of time to go over all of them

1
Very well organized with a wide variety of presentations of the material. A finely structured presentation of several jazz basics with exteensive permutations of each.