Thinking in Jazz

Thinking in Jazz
Author: Paul F. Berliner
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 904
Release: 2009-10-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0226044521

A landmark in jazz studies, Thinking in Jazz reveals as never before how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner documents the lifetime of preparation that lies behind the skilled improviser's every idea. The product of more than fifteen years of immersion in the jazz world, Thinking in Jazz combines participant observation with detailed musicological analysis, the author's experience as a jazz trumpeter, interpretations of published material by scholars and performers, and, above all, original data from interviews with more than fifty professional musicians: bassists George Duvivier and Rufus Reid; drummers Max Roach, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Akira Tana; guitarist Emily Remler; pianists Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris; saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Lee Konitz, and James Moody; trombonist Curtis Fuller; trumpeters Doc Cheatham, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, and Red Rodney; vocalists Carmen Lundy and Vea Williams; and others. Together, the interviews provide insight into the production of jazz by great artists like Betty Carter, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, and Charlie Parker. Thinking in Jazz overflows with musical examples from the 1920s to the present, including original transcriptions (keyed to commercial recordings) of collective improvisations by Miles Davis's and John Coltrane's groups. These transcriptions provide additional insight into the structure and creativity of jazz improvisation and represent a remarkable resource for jazz musicians as well as students and educators. Berliner explores the alternative ways—aural, visual, kinetic, verbal, emotional, theoretical, associative—in which these performers conceptualize their music and describes the delicate interplay of soloist and ensemble in collective improvisation. Berliner's skillful integration of data concerning musical development, the rigorous practice and thought artists devote to jazz outside of performance, and the complexities of composing in the moment leads to a new understanding of jazz improvisation as a language, an aesthetic, and a tradition. This unprecedented journey to the heart of the jazz tradition will fascinate and enlighten musicians, musicologists, and jazz fans alike.

The Jazz Theory Book

The Jazz Theory Book
Author: Mark Levine
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 725
Release: 2011-01-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1457101459

The most highly-acclaimed jazz theory book ever published! Over 500 pages of comprehensive, but easy to understand text covering every aspect of how jazz is constructed---chord construction, II-V-I progressions, scale theory, chord/scale relationships, the blues, reharmonization, and much more. A required text in universities world-wide, translated into five languages, endorsed by Jamey Aebersold, James Moody, Dave Liebman, etc.

Saying Something

Saying Something
Author: Ingrid Monson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2009-02-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0226534790

This fresh look at the neglected rhythm section in jazz ensembles shows that the improvisational interplay among drums, bass, and piano is just as innovative, complex, and spontaneous as the solo. Ingrid Monson juxtaposes musicians' talk and musical examples to ask how musicians go about "saying something" through music in a way that articulates identity, politics, and race. Through interviews with Jaki Byard, Richard Davis, Sir Roland Hanna, Billy Higgins, Cecil McBee, and others, she develops a perspective on jazz improvisation that has "interactiveness" at its core, in the creation of music through improvisational interaction, in the shaping of social communities and networks through music, and in the development of cultural meanings and ideologies that inform the interpretation of jazz in twentieth-century American cultural life. Replete with original musical transcriptions, this broad view of jazz improvisation and its emotional and cultural power will have a wide audience among jazz fans, ethnomusicologists, and anthropologists.

The Jazz Piano Book

The Jazz Piano Book
Author: Mark Levine
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2011-01-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1457101440

The most highly acclaimed jazz piano method ever published! Over 300 pages with complete chapters on Intervals and triads, The major modes and II-V-I, 3-note voicings, Sus. and phrygian Chords, Adding notes to 3-note voicings, Tritone substitution, Left-hand voicings, Altering notes in left-hand Stride and Bud Powell voicings, Block chords, Comping ...and much more! Endorsed by Kenny Barron, Down Beat, Jamey Aebersold, etc.

Musical Echoes

Musical Echoes
Author: Carol Ann Muller
Publisher: Duke University Press Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-11-16
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780822348917

Musical Echoes tells the life story of the South African jazz vocalist Sathima Bea Benjamin. Born in Cape Town in the 1930s, Benjamin came to know American jazz and popular music through the radio, movies, records, and live stage and dance band performances. She was especially moved by the voice of Billie Holiday. In 1962 she and Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) left South Africa together for Europe, where they met and recorded with Duke Ellington. Benjamin and Ibrahim spent their lives on the move between Europe, the United States, and South Africa until 1977, when they left Africa for New York City and declared their support for the African National Congress. In New York, Benjamin established her own record company and recorded her music independently from Ibrahim. Musical Echoes reflects twenty years of archival research and conversation between this extraordinary jazz singer and the South African musicologist Carol Ann Muller. The narrative of Benjamin’s life and times is interspersed with Muller’s reflections on the vocalist’s story and its implications for jazz history.

The Berklee Book of Jazz Harmony

The Berklee Book of Jazz Harmony
Author: Joe Mulholland
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2013-08-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1480360856

(Berklee Guide). Learn jazz harmony, as taught at Berklee College of Music. This text provides a strong foundation in harmonic principles, supporting further study in jazz composition, arranging, and improvisation. It covers basic chord types and their tensions, with practical demonstrations of how they are used in characteristic jazz contexts and an accompanying recording that lets you hear how they can be applied.

The Jazz Language: A Theory Text for Jazz Composition and Improvisation

The Jazz Language: A Theory Text for Jazz Composition and Improvisation
Author: Dan Haerle
Publisher: Alfred Music
Total Pages: 64
Release: 1980
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9781457494086

This text presents all of the materials commonly used by the jazz musician in a logical order dictated both by complexity and need. The book is not intended to be either an arranging or improvisation text, but a pedagogical reference providing the information musicians need to pursue any activity they wish.

The Jazz of Physics

The Jazz of Physics
Author: Stephon Alexander
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2016-04-26
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0465098509

A spectacular musical and scientific journey from the Bronx to the cosmic horizon that reveals the astonishing links between jazz, science, Einstein, and Coltrane More than fifty years ago, John Coltrane drew the twelve musical notes in a circle and connected them by straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane put physics and geometry at the core of his music. Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander follows suit, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe. Following the great minds that first drew the links between music and physics-a list including Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, and Rakim — The Jazz of Physics reveals that the ancient poetic idea of the "Music of the Spheres," taken seriously, clarifies confounding issues in physics. The Jazz of Physics will fascinate and inspire anyone interested in the mysteries of our universe, music, and life itself.

Think Jazz!

Think Jazz!
Author: Bill Boyd
Publisher: Composer Showcase
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1994-09
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780793523184

(Educational Piano Library). Bill Boyd, master composer of original jazz for young students, created this thorough, inventive method especially for young students. Teachers and students with little or no prior knowledge of jazz idioms will find this book easy to follow, and will enjoy the great original songs that form the core of this informative book. It's a great introduction to jazz for the early intermediate-level student. Includes units on: Jazz Rhythms & Accompaniments * Basic Improvisation * Ragtime * '50s Rock * Playing from a Fake Book * Blues * Rock and Stride Bass * Boogie Woogie * and more.