Jazz Blues Piano (Hal Leonard Keyboard Style) (Includes Online Access Code): The Complete Guide with Audio! Paperback – 24 July 2006

Oooh......Another superlative 'How To' book from Mark Harrison, on the subject of......Jazz Blues piano! If you're thinking, "Jazz Blues....isn't that just more 'my baby done left me' type stuff with slightly better chords?" then you'd be wrong. Bigly wrong - the downloadable audio content or CD depending on which edition you get, sounds incredible; sophisticated and slick. Track 5 uses G11 and G13 chord inversions with the bass or left hand providing 7ths and it's truly incredible how melodic and tasteful your playing can sound just by moving the bass note to alter the sound of these kinds of chord voicings that the typical intermediate player would use almost every finger on both hands to play. Which leads me on to my next point...Jazz pianists, like Jazz guitarists, do not play basic Root, Major or Minor 3rd and 5th note chords ever. If you fancy learning to play Jazz piano and intend to purchase this book, learn how to construct EVERY chord you already know and or about to know using just the 3rd and 7th notes (7th - 3rd - 7th). I hope you know your chord vocabulary inside out and can play 3rd & 7ths of every Minor 7, Dominant 7 and Major 7th chord, sharp or flat traversing the Circle of 5ths. If you do, you're sorted!If you don't, it's going to slow your progress right down. I'll update this "review" at a later date as I progress through this excellent volume.McRonsonUpdate: Whoa, this book is GOOD! From page 27 onwards, learn to play every chord with your left hand or you'll hafta to relearn them all each time you move onto a new section...I'd also fully recommend you buy this book first if you're intent on learning Jazz piano. The same author's tome on full fat Jazz is not for beginners or intermediate players at all. Jazz Blues piano really is Vol. 1 in this respect.

Very well organised book. Modes and scales are easy to understand and more importantly play. He makes tricky concepts more simple to follow. A very good Intro to theory let alone piano itself .You will see rapid progress

I needed a beginner-intermediate book that would give lots of examples, at the same time gently explaining music theory in the background. This book is exactly what I was looking for. In my opinion, this is the best jazz-blues guide for a person with no particular piano experience. It does very well what the product description says. There is no strict order of reading, and therefore one can study patterns, comping and soloing in parallel, just not to get stuck with any one of these.To make one's life even more interesting, other guides by the same author can be used. For example, I'm studying SMOOTH JAZZ PIANO to complement the jazz-blues stuff.I'm particularly happy with the explanation of theory. With this book, you won't need a "Piano for dummies"-level trash.

If jazz blues is just another music style you'd like to be able to play some semblance of then this book is probably spot on and pretty much all you'll need. The theory is well presented and the examples give the necessary basic flavors.However, if jazz blues is your out and out passion, you'd probably be better served by the Berklee books. And, daft as you like, take a listen at some of the gospel oriented piano/organ lesson sites out there? Don't get me wrong here, religion ain't my thing at all, but I've learnt a ton of useful jazz blues keyboard stuff from some of these sites that you just don't find anywhere else!

This is an excellent book for anyone who can read music and has a basic level of piano ability. Whilst the explanations of chords and harmony can be overly technical at times, you can pick up a huge amount just by listening to the CD and playing the corresponding bars from the book.The style guide is particularly rewarding, and in no time at all I was playing something that sounded vaguely like Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock etc, in that it was at least reminiscent of their style albeit much slower and less technical! I have the bebop and blues book in this series and they combine to provide a great library of material.

this is the coolest book on Jazz I've got. It's the real thing, 100%. Can't wait to get started, but I'm not allowed to at the moment as it's too noisy. When I'm allowed to play it, I'll just have to play more quietly.

This book is too advanced for me but I am sure this is an excellent book for someone who is at a higher standard than myself.

You need a bit of theory but other then that good book