The Jazz Theory Book Kindle Edition

I am very happy with the book and content:-) and the seller......... Years ago when I was in high school I wanted to play jazz piano but realized my music instructor was just milking it for every thing she could get and was extremely bored and she was really bad musically! I would just play anything not realizing that I was playing what they call free, no body realized was I was doing, it was a way of making music more interesting. The teach rather than admit she couldn't provide a jazz aproach dumped me saying that I was late after years of lessons and she had better things to do with her time. She created such a resentment I never touched the piano again, not to mention their were not any known instructors in my area at that time for jazz. But after 30yrs I picked out a alto sax Rampone &Cazzani silver, (get an anti tarnish clothe they use for covering sterling silverware and that will keep out the tranish, it is sold by yard in faberic stores) so, if you like silver horn thats the way to go. And so started pecking away at it, then truly realizing how awful an instructor I had, the more I started digging the more questions I had, and the first pages answered a lot of them from this Jazz Theory book. I also think any book should get reviews from not only masters but also the the novice because this is what the book is written for... This book is to give an understanding of all the scales and how the scale is derived etc...and what can be done with a scale. The only thing I think I retained from my past music intructor was how to read notes and then I had to write them in to jar my memory so they would become second nature to me. Now the real work begins, my hope is to get past the theory to create. And there is a jazz piano book theory written, so as I go through this book I may consider the piano againI had the cd rom for this theory book from pennylanemusicbooks, they are not nice...and have awful customer service I will never try to be a customer of them again.

In depth, immersive, comprehensive, exhaustive and sometime exhausting explanation of Jazz Theory.

Fantastic book. Answered a lot of questions I had. It is better laid out in terms of sequence than the jazz piano book. The sequence oh this book introduces things more smoothly and in an integrated fashion. There is a lot of the same material as the jazz piano book but there is data in the jazz piano book which is not on thus one (more specific to pianists - like data on chord voicings) and there is data in this one on improvisation, repertoire and practise routines they is not in the piano book. When I went through this one several points about scales and modes I had misunderstood finally clicked.The great thing about these books is they don't oversell some "method" of "learning jazz quick" and they also do not over complicate things. The basic information is all there and after that it is just up to you to practice and explore and learn for yourself. Don't expect to read it cover to cover and be able to play jazz. It will be a matter of taking these principles and working on them in practice day after day. But I would say this is one of the best launching pads to take off from in terms of encompassing all the basics of Jazz.For the pianist, I would just buy both of his books and go through them in parallel or go through the chapters on scales and modes from this book first.

I have a large collection of music instructional books and The Jazz Theory Book is the best. It goes deeply into where others leave off and cut short, and it does so with clear, simple explanations and illustrations that makes the complex discussion of advanced harmony readily digestible. Several years ago I hesitated buying the book because of the cost and especially because it did not have a "look inside" feature. After continuing to see great reviews I went ahead and took the chance, and am glad I did. It is loaded with juicy tidbits of jazz history along with the harmony lesson at hand such as this: "Before the bebop era, most jazz musicians played the 4th of a major chord as a passing note only. Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and other pioneers of bebop often raised the 4th, as shown in figure 3-11, in their improvising, chord voicings, and original tunes. It's hard to believe now, but the raised 4th was a very controversial note during the 1940s. People actually wrote letters to Down Beat magazine about it, saying things like "the beboppers are ruining our music" and "jazz is dead."The only other thing I can say is that I am in no way a paid reviewer and do not benefit from the sale of this book. As a musician, I simply feel grateful to have come across it.

This is one of the greatest theory books I have ever read. There is sooooo much to the book: you can read it cover to cover and I guarantee you will learn something you did not know. You can take a chapter and read it, review it, digest it, practice it, and I'm sure your improvisation and understanding of jazz will improve. You can grab the book and look up a specific topic to get answers when you need them. Whether as a teaching tool or a reference, the book is outstanding.Four stars instead of five because I have the Kindle version and no longer own a Kindle.