Product Description

Jazz Guitar Comping helps players get a handle on the most important job a guitarist has when playing in a small group: comping. This book will show guitarists ways to create chord voicings and comping rhythms that will make them an asset to any jazz group.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #160365 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-28
• Released on: 2005-07-28
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 136 pages

From the Publisher
"Comping" is an abbreviation of the word "accompanying". Within a Jazz group, it is the art of improvising a chordal accompaniment for a soloist or singer. When you are the only chordal instrument in the group, you will likely spend 75% of the time comping--which means that it is the most important thing you do.

Jazz Guitar Comping gives the guitarist the tools needed to be an effective comper, and an asset to any small jazz group. There is a wealth of information about building chords, voice leading and the rhythm. The CD contains mny examples from the book and includes recorings of a jazz quartet with analysis of the soloist and the comping.

About the Author
Andrew Green is a guitarist residing in New York City. A professional musician since the age of 15, he has played with such jazz notables as Donald Byrd, Billy Hart, Joanne Brackeen, Winard Harper, Mat Maneri, John McNeil, Chip Jackson, Matt Wilson, Ralph LaLama,and Dave Berkman,among others. In addition to performing, conducts clinics throughout the US and Canada.

Customer Reviews

Don't buy if you can't read music
Great book but you better know how to read music. No tab and very few chord diagrams.

the most comprehensive jazz guitar comping book
This is the most comprehensive jazz guitar comping book I've come across. It's loaded with information and better yet, Andrew Green has a great way of presenting things that make it easier to apply than other methods. I also own Andrews 'Structures' book and am finding these two books to be favorites. It's easy to follow and apply, and there's a lot of meat to the books.

I compared this to Jim Fergusons's Comping book and it's a no contest for me. Andrew's better in presenting things and provides much more. The only thing it doesn't touch is chord melody playing, which is understandable. The best book to me on chord melody is Robert Conti's Chord Melody Assembly Line book.

Like the 'Structures' book, there is a decent amount of reading (as in notational reading and no tab) so I wouldn't say his series is made for the beginner. But if you can read a little and have some experience but are just getting into jazz, then I highly recommend Andrew's series.

Great book about comping
This is the third book I've purchased by Andrew Green. I'm a big fan of how he presents information. 'Jazz Guitar Comping', like his other books makes learning simple. What I find so attractive about all of these books is that instead of getting an overwhelming amount of information, I get a simple and concise explanation. This simple explanation can then be applied to my own explorations of comping, soloing, technique, etc.. I like this format much better than books I've acquired in the past that immediately give me, let's say, 300 chords to learn and leave it at that without much of a learning system.

'Jazz Guitar Comping' not only presents information I've seen before in much simpler terms, but also has some great ideas that are new to me. The multi-use voicings chapter, much like the multiple uses of structures in 'Jazz Guitar Structures', is wonderfully informative.

I'm a teacher so I'm familiar with a number of learnign styles. This book seems to work well for those with a self-driven, concept-based learning style. It's very good about explaning concepts and principles rather than relying on memorization. These concepts allow for experimentation and trial by the student. This is a learning method that yields great results because of all of the application.

Thank you Andrew Green for another good guitar book.