Thelonious Monk: Originals & Standards [Paperback] Review

well first off you'll probably notice that there is no concrete description of the book's contents. and you'll probably think to yourself 'there's no way they'd make me spend that much for a book of measure numbers and (simplified) chord names without throwing in at least a few transcriptions of solos.'
ironically, you would be wrong, were that your thought. yes, this is a fake book. fine for improvising over, since it gives you pretty bland transcriptions of the melodies and the chord progressions. but don't expect to have any closer glimpse into the music of monk. this will not let you see what notes monk plays, won't let you see the true craft of the pianist.
i had hoped this would turn out to be something like 'the complete charlie parker,' which is to date the most helpful book of solo transcriptions i've found. this was not even close. it's pretty pathetic how few notes are on the few pages of this book. make sure you see a copy of the book before deciding whether it's worth your while or not.

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Product Description:
A collection of compositions by one of the most creative figures in the history of jazz. Expertly arranged, the works are accompanied by descriptive text.

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The Great Music of Duke Ellington [Paperback] Review

This book contains a 14 page overview of Duke's career and the words and music to over 40 songs, which are:
Albamy Home
Azure
Birmingham Breakdown
Black Butterfly
Bli-blip
Boy Meets Horn
The Brown Skin Gal in the Calico Gown
Caravan
Come Sunday
The Creole Love Call
Day Dream
Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me
Doin' The Crazy Walk
Don't Get Around Much Anymore
Echoes Of Harlem
Everything But You
Five O'Clock Drag
The Gal From Joe's
Gypsy Without A Song
I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good
I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart
I Never Felt This Way Before
I'm Just A Lucky So And So
I'm Riding On The Moon And Dancing On The Stars
I'm So In Love With You
In A Sentimental Mood
It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
Jeep Is Jumping
Lady In Blue
Lost In Meditation
Love You Madly
Mood Indigo
Paris Blues
Please Forgive Me
Prelude To A Kiss
Ring Dem Bells
Rockin' In Rhythm
Satin Doll
Solitude
Something To Live For
Sophisticated Lady
Take The "A" Train

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Barrelhouse and Boogie Piano (Music Sales America) [Paperback] Review

The transcriptions of some of the greatest barrelhouse and blues pianists such as Jelly Roll Morton, Meade Lux Lewis, Memphis Slim, along with their history are in this music book.
There is also a tantalizing CD of samples of the pieces in the book as played by the great blues pianists. This gives essential information as to how the syncopation and rubato sounds in the hands of the masters. The only problem is that as the snippet gets going, you really want to hear the entire piece and whammo! It's only a few seconds per piece, 12 minutes in all. Why oh why couldn't they put at least a few complete works on the CD?
Other than that quibble, this is a great book for blues piano, though greats such as Roosevelt Sykes are to be found in a companion volume, not in this one.
A must for blues lovers who play keyboard.

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Product Description:
An important instruction guide to the blues-style piano by the author of Six Blues Roots Pianists. Complete with music transcriptions and excerpts from the original recordings of 22 piano greats.

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Classic Piano Rags [Paperback] Review

There are a fair number of books on the market with ragtime sheet music in them.This is the one I've used the most over the years, since despite its quirks it's the best way of getting a hold of a generous amount of period ragtime, in unedited form.
About that "unedited form".The book photographically reproduces the original sheet music verbatim.This has its downside: the original music companies printed things in a quick'n'dirty manner, & while the sheet music from Stark (Joplin, Lamb, Scott, &c) is usually well-presented & carefully set, some of the other music is sprinkled with errors & eccentricities, especially the tunes by Charles Hunter.However, I'd rather have the typos--easily fixed--than have some meddling editor tidy up the text.Editions of these tunes by people like Max Morath tend to have a fair bit of editorial interference, & I'd much rather see what the tunes looked like without that kind of filtering.
Dover also prides itself on historically accurate reprints.This means that you get the original cover art.....which is as you'd imagine often pretty offensive by modern standards in its depiction of African-Americans.Still, it's just as well to be reminded of the historical conditions of this music's creation and dissemination. -- What's more irritating & less justifiable about the decision to include cover art is that it completely throws off the pagination.Since each piece is typically 4 pages long, adding the cover art makes for 5 pages--so that every second piece has its page turns in exactly the wrong place.This isn't a minor quibble: often the page turns are as a result placed in the middle of repeats, at key moments in the score, &c.Dover ought to have added some blank pages to keep the rectos & versos in the right sequence.
Anyway, enough caviling.What you get is an enormous pile of Joplin--nice, but that's easily enough available elsewhere.But you get a huge selection of work by most of the other really interesting figures of the period.I think Blesh's concept of "Classic Ragtime" is a crock, an attempt to make polemical distinctions between high art & popular trash in a genre where such distinctions are hard to make.& what does the idiosyncratic, rather naive music of Charles Hunter have to do with the sophisticated creations of Joplin or Artie Matthews anyway?Anyway, it's great to have all this stuff here--pieces by Robert Hampson, Hunter, Charles L Johnson, Joplin, Joe Jordan, Joe Lamb, Arthur Marshall, Matthews, Scott, Charles Thompson, Tom Turpin, Percy Wenrich, Clarence Woods.I've spent years working through the book.
Fans of this book, by the way, should check out Trebor Tichenor's two volumes of ragtime rarities for Dover--these include some terribly obscure stuff along with lesser-known Scott & Lamb pieces, & is very much worth exploring if you're curious about the genre.

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Product Description:
Best ragtime music (1897-1922) by the greatest ragtime composers of the age: Scott Joplin, James Scott, Joseph Lamb, Tom Turpin, nine more. Definitive collection for lovers and performers of ragtime.


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Jazz Hanon (Hanon Series) [Paperback] Review

I have mixed opinions on this one... To be honest, you can probably get an even better bang for the buck by purchasing the full version of Hanon's Virtuoso Pianist and practising the exersizes with swing feel (play chords in your LH and the patterns in your RH), then you could then go out and get some of David Baker's Bebop Pattern books and dig down even deeper... (If you don't know what swing time and swing feel is, you should probably sit in a few lessons with a Jazz improv instructor anyway... sometimes it doesn't come through in writing anyway.)- - Of course what's most important is being able to take the pattern concepts, and applying them to the scales and modes that fit in with different chords, so for that purpose, you should definitely get your hand on a good Jazz Improv book... and also be sure to learn them in all keys... whatever the case, the most important thing to realize is that this is a TECHNIQUE book... not an improv book... hence,you should use this book for the purpose of building your dexterity not for solo ideas...If you're looking for a good HOW TO PLAY JAZZ book, check out my AMAZON list on Essential Jazz Learning Resources.

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Product Description:
Here are graded études and progressive exercises for developing strength, facility, and necessary techniques in jazz piano styles. Included are elements of jazz harmony, chromatic alterations, voicing, swing, bebop, and a chord symbol appendix.

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Rhapsody in Blue (Original) (Jazz Band Version) [Paperback] Review

Simply said, I am using this as the feature of my senior piano performace recital at my college. This brilliant work is something to behold in its concerto form, something to enjoy it its orchestral form, and something that every one should study in its piano solo form.

Gershwin himself wrote this arrangement, so it can be safe to assume that everything in this piece is exactly how Gerswhin wanted it. I would imagine he would best realize what he original thought to be the important parts...

Ryan

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Product Description:
Gershwin Facsimile Editions are reproductions of Gershwin's original orchestral manuscripts which are housed at the Library of Congress in Washington. These volumes are annotated, have historical articles about each work, and contain much information not generally found elsewhere.

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The Definitive Jazz Collection (Definitive Collections) [Paperback] Review

No "fake book", or "real book" this.You get full, well-thought-out harmonizations.This isn't how Jazz pianists acquire their numbers, but hey, this graduate of the weekly visit to the traditional read-the-music-and-play-it-exactly-as-written piano teacher likes it just fine this way.Having played through about 25% of the songs, I'll say there are no really bad arrangements, and quite a few very good ones.The technical difficulty is toward the higher end of the non-classical stuff you find in the music stores -- the average song is about as hard (if you want to play all the notes) as a Chopin Waltz or a Clementi Sonatina.

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Product Description:
A once-in-a-lifetime collection of 90 of the greatest jazz songs ever compiled into one volume. Includes: Ain't Misbehavin' * All the Things You Are * Birdland * Body and Soul * A Foggy Day * Girl From Ipanema * Here's That Rainy Day * The Lady Is a Tramp * Love for Sale * Mercy, Mercy, Mercy * Midnight Sun * Moonlight in Vermont * Night and Day * Skylark * Stormy Weather * Sweet Georgia Brown.

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Simply Gershwin the Music of George & Ira Gershwin: 20 of Their Most Popular Works (Piano - Personality Book, Easy Piano) [Large Print] [Paperback] Review

I'm going to sound like a broken record, because I have basically the same review to report for this book as I did for Simply Brubeck - The Music Of Dave Brubeck - 26 Of His Top Jazz Classics.That is to say...

The arrangements are very well done--definitely on the intermediate side, but not terribly so. A student who has been playing for 1-2 years should be able to reward themselves with at least the main theme after a few hours of work. And for this reason, I'd give to book a solid 4 stars.

But the binding...it's the opposite of "lay flat", and woe unto anybody who tries to play from it without serious mechanical help. We have a page-spreading device, and it is barely a match for the binding, even though I have broken that binding in three places--near the beginning, in the middle, and near the end. The book binders were obviously oblivious to the considerations of how the book would be used.

So...wonderful content, but not wonderfully executed as a book meant to rest open on a piano.

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Product Description:
Simply Gershwin is a collection of the most famous compositions by George and Ira Gershwin. Phrase markings, articulations, fingering and dynamics have been included to aid with interpretation, and a large print size makes the notation easy to read. Titles: Bidin' My Time * But Not for Me * Embraceable You * A Foggy Day * I Got Rhythm * I've Got a Crush on You * Let's Call the Whole Thing Off * Love Is Here to Stay * Lullaby (for String Quartet) * The Man I Love * Nice Work If You Can Get It * Prelude II (Blue Lullaby) (1927) * Rhapsody in Blue * Somebody Loves Me * Someone to Watch over Me * Strike Up the Band! * Summertime * 'S Wonderful * They Can't Take That Away from Me * Three-Quarter Blues.

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Movie Songs by Special Arrangement (Jazz-Style Arrangements with a ""Variation""): Piano Acc. [Paperback] Review

This book is markedly better than many of the "play along" books I have purchased for alto sax.
First, the books are aimed only at alto sax--not at a hodge-podge collection of instruments.This means every page of the book is useful to the alto sax player, unlike some books where music for other instruments takes up large portions of the book.
Second, Strommen has created arrangements that have the "basic" melody in the first half of the song followed by melodic riffs/alto sax solos in the second half.The arrangements are targeted for alto sax and are put together to get a full and interesting sound.This allows a novice or intermediate player to sound like a "real" saxophonist instead of someone who is stuggling through a barren and uninteresting melodic line.
Third, the accompanying CD is excellent.Even numbered tracks have a trio made up of percussion, piano and a REAL alto sax.(This is compared to many other CDs which have the piano or bells playing the sax part.) Odd numbered tracks leave out the sax so you can play along.In all tracks the piano and the percussion are arranged to support the sax so again you really feel and sound like a saxophonist.
Strommen has three books that I know of that are all produced in the same style--a movies book, a Gershwin book and a Christmas book.They are all excellent in my humble opinion. If you are looking for an alto sax book that has sound musical values, is playable by a novice/intermediate player, and will make you sound AWESOME then these are the books for you!

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Product Description:
Each collection contains 11 songs arranged for the instrumentalist wanting to play in a jazz style -- without the need to learn to improvise. All of the books are compatible, with only minimal changes in the ""variation"" section to accommodate the ranges and unique characteristics of the instruments.

The immortal and memorable motion picture titles are: Sweet Georgia Brown
* Over the Rainbow
* A Day in the Life of a Fool
* Bye, Bye, Blackbird
* As Time Goes By
* Days of Wine and Roses
* Emily
* The Way You Look Tonight
* Misty
* On Green Dolphin Street
* Almost Like Being in Love.

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Jazz Standards [Paperback] Review

Ever start singing a show tune you'd just heard in a furniture store, and get stuck on a line?"Hide your heart from sight, lock your dreams at night, it could happen to you..."That's where this book comes in.It gives you words and melody line for 100 songs and these are strictly A-list of the Great American Songbook (plus some bossa nova, a nice touch), with no filler.Put together the 10 books you've been allowed to take on your Desert Island trip, then slip this one in your back pocket.

As others have pointed out, it's not really suited for instrumentalists.But that, along with the fact that you can probably find all this material on the Internet, is undoubtedly what allowed the publisher to offer this collection at such a low price.

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Product Description:
50 songs, including: All the Things You Are * But Beautiful * Come Rain or Come Shine * Honeysuckle Rose * I Could Write a Book * In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning * Misty * The Nearness of You * Stardust * What'll I Do? * and more.

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Improvising Rock Piano [Paperback] Review

This is a brilliant book!
The focus here is on playing idiomatically in a number of "rock piano" styles, starting off in the fifties with Fats Domino-style triplet ballads and moving through Aretha-style gospelsoul, Fess-like early New Orleans, Dr John-ish later NO, Elton John, LeonRussell-y eights-time rock, Carole King soft rock...¨
Now, this is not,mind y'all, in the form of straight transcriptions, but rather after athoroughly analysis. Every style is related to earlier styles, rythmicallyand harmonically, and typical figures or runs is shown, together with thetypical basic rythms and accompaignement patterns. Then comes a wholepiece, either a transcription of a well-known song (f'rinstance "Mo'scocious") or an original in that particular style, where all thedifferent elements are put together and shown in context.
The result isthat one gets not only a few licks to pop off, but rather that one gets theidea of *how* to make a stylisticaly fitting lick, how to achieve the basicgroove, and how to put it all together as a cohesive song.Brilliant.
Criticisms: Well, it goes no further than 1978, obviously,since that was when it was published. However, to me at least, not muchimportant has happened in rock piano styles since, so I stand by my 5stars. Go Get!

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The Best Jazz Standards Ever (Easy Piano Songbook) [Paperback] Review

Some of the more popular tunes in this compilation are A night in Tunisia, Satin Doll, Sophisticated Lady and All the things you are. Missing out on classics like Take the A-train in lieu of several rather obscure tunes that aren't exactly Jazz standards, by my measure, is the book's greatest flaw. For the beginning to intermediate jazz student, its a nice book to own. All the songs are full arrangements and not too difficult to play. Advanced pianists will probably be happier with a nice, solid fakebook.

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Product Description:
Easy arrangements of 71 favorites: Ain't Misbehavin' * Autumn Leaves * Body and Soul * Come Rain or Come Shine * Don't Get Around Much Anymore * The Girl from Ipanema * How Deep Is the Ocean * I'll Remember April * It's Only a Paper Moon * The Lady Is a Tramp * Lullaby of Birdland * Misty * My Funny Valentine * The Nearness of You * Satin Doll * Some Enchanted Evening * Stardust * Stormy Weather * The Very Thought of You * more.

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