![Jazz-Blues Piano: The Complete Guide with CD Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series [Paperback]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tx3DLSU0seJoYS5g5gfLK8cLU3PQGrxRI_xC274CxrFQJ6kJ4nyZA_5sI0lGFI5F1Lkb9cE6SjX0ZK-mBOlpYJ70uat5cg61Ocb7YE9LkfA_m6C9dF0C_rjgtAcOfEfSQ=s0-d)
I've been playing jazz piano for about two years now, and have had great success with The Jazz Piano Book (as one might imagine). The next book that has served me well is Post-Bop Jazz Piano - The Complete Guide with CD!: Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series, which is from the same series as the Jazz Blues Piano book under review. So, when I began looking for a book to help me sound bluesy, something noticeably lacking from my skill set, I gravitated toward this book for that reason and because my piano instructor didn't have this book (although he had many others in the same series). I have to say, that overnight, this became my favorite book to work from. There are a lot of reasons for that. First is that this book contains a good dose of easy-to-digest jazz music theory and explanation. The student can choose to skip over this and concentrate on playing the exercises, but I chose to read everything carefully and to try and understand and apply it, and I found it very useful. I was also quite pleasantly surprised when I found myself playing a ii-V-I progression (the backbone of jazz music) in a fashion I had never been shown before (with a moving bass note changing the mode of the chord). I was fascinated, and it made it easy for me to work on doing it in all twelve keys (which is normally drudgery), and to quickly press on in the book. As I played through the exercises, read through the material, then reached the exercises that are on the CD, I kept working on the suggested chords. Because I'm not a raw beginner, the first twenty pages went very quickly, and all of a sudden I found myself at about twenty pages in on exercise 9practicing a straight up blues lick. That's right: two hours and I was playing blues. Very, very exciting. Like all piano books, including a number I have reviewed, this still requires practice and stick-to-itive-ness, but this book provides some small rewards on every page, which I find quite motivational and desirable. I can easily picture myself working through this entire book in a relatively short period of time. Beginning piano students will still need to work on some of this material with an instructor, but anybody with a good technical foundation in piano and at least a small amount of jazz knowledge should be able to work through most of this by themselves, thanks to the useful and well executed CD. Although there are many options and levels available, if you want to sound jazzy or bluesy, without a lot of fuss and without spending a lot of money or time, I really think this book is the best and simplest place to start.
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Jazz-Blues Piano: The Complete Guide with CD Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series [Paperback]Product Description: This comprehensive book/CD pack will teach you the basic skills needed to play jazz-blues piano. From comping to soloing, you'll learn the theory, the tools, and the tricks used by the pros. The accompanying CD features many of the examples in the book performed either solo, or with a full band, including a full chapter of complete songs. Topics covered include: scales and chords * harmony and voicings * progressions and comping * melodies and soloing * characteristic stylings.
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![Bebop Jazz Piano: Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series [Paperback]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_s6z8GCZdWiIFmC_EERd6Yq1grxpMNLw6tr94UwzCOYS-HirSIJilt_G_iEziEotCzGLqqA5Q3zuQKYO3QNPIFJNj64MRhlLbZuLcxlXd4DohNyzw8lNHgBtNApNXz_oQ=s0-d)
I have a few of the other books in this series and find them all great! John Valerio is a wonderful composer and teacher and has a very similar style to Mark Harrison (another composer in this series). This book includes important information about chords, voicings, harmony, chord progressions, scales, tonality, melodic figures and patters, comping, characteristic tunes, styles of Bud Powell and Theolonious Monk...anything that is used in any type of bebop jazz. It goes through the history and evolution of Bebop. The book moves quickly but provides the information that is important. It comes with a very handy CD which allows to hear what it's supposed to sound like. I highly recommend this book and have found that using it with some of the other books in the series is beyond helpful!
