Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, Informative, Thorough
Review: After reading this book, one must admit that Paul Berliner has done his homework, and since the subject is the mammoth topic of the improvised music language, that is no small task. In fact, he states in the opening notes that this work begun as far as the late seventies, and many noted jazz musicians were involved in the concept and contributed to the final product - sharing personal stories, historical notes and specially revising the music examples that contitute a large part of this book. Trying to put a concept such as improvisation in written form, and more than that, trying to organize it in a system that would be helpful to understand and cultivate the protocol represents an amazing challenge to the writer, and I would say that Paul Berliner's approach not only accomplished that, but turned what would be a rather sterile read into a wonderful book. Of course, there are minor complaints (and all of them are subjective, by the way - such an an underlying feeling that he favours sound over form, sometimes dismissing contributions made by non-jazz musicians to the history of improvised music - despite the author's previous work with traditional african music), but what he achieved at the end must be hailed. An *AMAZING* book that will keep aficionados entertained for years.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, Informative, Thorough
Review: After reading this book, one must admit that Paul Berliner has done his homework, and since the subject is the mammoth topic of the improvised music language, that is no small task. In fact, he states in the opening notes that this work begun as far as the late seventies, and many noted jazz musicians were involved in the concept and contributed to the final product - sharing personal stories, historical notes and specially revising the music examples that contitute a large part of this book. Trying to put a concept such as improvisation in written form, and more than that, trying to organize it in a system that would be helpful to understand and cultivate the protocol represents an amazing challenge to the writer, and I would say that Paul Berliner's approach not only accomplished that, but turned what would be a rather sterile read into a wonderful book. Of course, there are minor complaints (and all of them are subjective, by the way - such an an underlying feeling that he favours sound over form, sometimes dismissing contributions made by non-jazz musicians to the history of improvised music - despite the author's previous work with traditional african music), but what he achieved at the end must be hailed. An *AMAZING* book that will keep aficionados entertained for years.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: An absolutely groundbreaking work that cuts through all the misconceptions about improv & tells what it's really like. Honestly, this is the only book of its kind that really resonates with musicians and has this level of scope, clear & cogent writing, organization, musical examples (what transcriptions!), and respected primary sources.
Rating:
Summary: A must for musicians that like to read, too
Review: An incredible book with a wealth of first-rate information by jazz musicians telling how they learned their craft - and how they think on their feet while improvising. I loved it, as you can guess.
Rating: 
Summary: Shallow
Review: Mr. Berliner reduces the Art of Jazz Improvistaion to nothing more than rote regurgitation of memorized licks and phrases. The True Nature of Jazz Improvisation is much more profound than his book describes. His work is perhaps usefull in understanding one small, peripheral aspect of Jazz Improvisation, but anyone who would like to seriously understand the Artform needs to take his point of with the understanding that is only a small fragment of what a musicians Mind, Body and Soul process to create truly spontaneous beauty, which is the Real and True Art of Jazz.
Rating:
Summary: A unique book about jazz
Review: Paul F Berliner is an ethnomusicologist at Northwestern (his previous book was _The Soul of Mbira_); here he turns his methods to the realm of jazz. His book is organized according to the learning process through which jazz improvisors proceed, from their first picking up an instrument to becoming masters of their art; rather in the mode of an ethnographer, Berliner learned a lot of this first-hand, picking up the trumpet again (he had been a classically-trained trumpeter when younger) to gain experience of how one goes about learning to play jazz. He also interviewed dozens of musicians, both famous players (Max Roach, Wynton Marsalis, Lee Konitz, Fred Hersch, Kenny Barron) & little-known journeymen (usefully, there's a lot of stress on bassists & drummers, who are often overlooked in writings on jazz in favour of charismatic soloists). These interview materials are quoted extensively in the book, & it'd be valuable enough just for that, but it's also a thoughtful, expansive account of how jazz, and jazz musicians, are created. My experience is that the uninitiated tend to either treat improvisation too casually (assuming that anyone with adequate instrumental technique & musical theory can automatically improvise), or with excessive awe: this book is useful for anyone curious about improvisation, & indeed even experienced players & teachers will find it interesting. One nice feature of the book is the clarity of its organization. The main text is about 500pp long, written in clear, untechnical prose, with only a few illustrating diagrams or musical examples. The majority of the musicial examples are instead placed in a succeeding 250pp section: the high point of this is a series of four _full_ transcriptions of classic jazz recordings. By "full" I don't mean from end-to-end (indeed usually they're only a few choruses): rather, I mean that they are transcriptions of the entire band's activity, not just the soloist's line. The recordings transcribed are: Miles Davis's versions of "Bye Bye Blackbird", "I Thought About You" & "Blues by Five"; & Coltrane's version of "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise". As those names suggest, this book's aesthetic range is fairly narrow: basically bop & hard bop, whether filtered through the classicist bop aesthetic of Barry Harris, the pianist-pedagogue who is one of the book's touchstones; or through the neo-conservative aesthetic of Wynton Marsalis. (The book's other real touchstone, though not actually interviewed, is Betty Carter--a large percentage of the musicians interviewed were at one point Carter's sidemen.) The avantgarde, for instance, only gets a few peeks, notably in the figure of Ronald Shannon Jackson...though again, he's more often cited for his work with Betty Carter than with Cecil Taylor or Ornette Coleman! There is one engaging heart-on-sleeve affection here that upsets this neoclassism, though: Berliner is a big fan of Booker Little, & the text & musical examples frequently turn to his work. Nice to see Little get such sustained attention. The book is written, as I've said, quite clearly: the downside is that it's a little bland & studiedly impersonal. The interviews are also evidently cleaned up a bit: no humming & hawing or grammatical errors, very little slang, no swear words. While jazz musicians are a very articulate bunch, I somehow doubt the original interviews were quite this smooth. That's really the only criticism I have of the book. It does of course have its limits--one can imagine a very different book might have resulted if musicians like Charlie Haden, Paul Bley, Paul Motian, Bill Frisell or Sam Rivers were interviewed--but is nonetheless about as accurate an account of the informal, often very much heuristic educational process that leads an aspiring musician from his first efforts towards a mastery of the idiom.
Rating:
Summary: A unique book about jazz
Review: Paul F Berliner is an ethnomusicologist at Northwestern (his previous book was _The Soul of Mbira_); here he turns his methods to the realm of jazz. His book is organized according to the learning process through which jazz improvisors proceed, from their first picking up an instrument to becoming masters of their art; rather in the mode of an ethnographer, Berliner learned a lot of this first-hand, picking up the trumpet again (he had been a classically-trained trumpeter when younger) to gain experience of how one goes about learning to play jazz. He also interviewed dozens of musicians, both famous players (Max Roach, Wynton Marsalis, Lee Konitz, Fred Hersch, Kenny Barron) & little-known journeymen (usefully, there's a lot of stress on bassists & drummers, who are often overlooked in writings on jazz in favour of charismatic soloists). These interview materials are quoted extensively in the book, & it'd be valuable enough just for that, but it's also a thoughtful, expansive account of how jazz, and jazz musicians, are created. My experience is that the uninitiated tend to either treat improvisation too casually (assuming that anyone with adequate instrumental technique & musical theory can automatically improvise), or with excessive awe: this book is useful for anyone curious about improvisation, & indeed even experienced players & teachers will find it interesting. One nice feature of the book is the clarity of its organization. The main text is about 500pp long, written in clear, untechnical prose, with only a few illustrating diagrams or musical examples. The majority of the musicial examples are instead placed in a succeeding 250pp section: the high point of this is a series of four _full_ transcriptions of classic jazz recordings. By "full" I don't mean from end-to-end (indeed usually they're only a few choruses): rather, I mean that they are transcriptions of the entire band's activity, not just the soloist's line. The recordings transcribed are: Miles Davis's versions of "Bye Bye Blackbird", "I Thought About You" & "Blues by Five"; & Coltrane's version of "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise". As those names suggest, this book's aesthetic range is fairly narrow: basically bop & hard bop, whether filtered through the classicist bop aesthetic of Barry Harris, the pianist-pedagogue who is one of the book's touchstones; or through the neo-conservative aesthetic of Wynton Marsalis. (The book's other real touchstone, though not actually interviewed, is Betty Carter--a large percentage of the musicians interviewed were at one point Carter's sidemen.) The avantgarde, for instance, only gets a few peeks, notably in the figure of Ronald Shannon Jackson...though again, he's more often cited for his work with Betty Carter than with Cecil Taylor or Ornette Coleman! There is one engaging heart-on-sleeve affection here that upsets this neoclassism, though: Berliner is a big fan of Booker Little, & the text & musical examples frequently turn to his work. Nice to see Little get such sustained attention. The book is written, as I've said, quite clearly: the downside is that it's a little bland & studiedly impersonal. The interviews are also evidently cleaned up a bit: no humming & hawing or grammatical errors, very little slang, no swear words. While jazz musicians are a very articulate bunch, I somehow doubt the original interviews were quite this smooth. That's really the only criticism I have of the book. It does of course have its limits--one can imagine a very different book might have resulted if musicians like Charlie Haden, Paul Bley, Paul Motian, Bill Frisell or Sam Rivers were interviewed--but is nonetheless about as accurate an account of the informal, often very much heuristic educational process that leads an aspiring musician from his first efforts towards a mastery of the idiom.
Rating:
Summary: A Monumental Breakthrough in Jazz Studies ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Review: The blurb on the back cover of this book has a slight understatement... It begins, "A landmark in jazz studies,"
Not since the advent of the long playing record and the publication of Leonard Feather's "Encyclopedia of Jazz" has anyone made such an enormous, substantive, light shedding contribution to Jazz (outside a recording studio.) This book is a must for everyone... and in fact, its divided into two parts... one which *is* for everyone, and goes into how musicians come up, hone their skills, learn to interact, develop and whatnot, and then the second half, which is more for musicians and features close to 400 pages of musical examples - - a text book in musical studies itself. As a musician myself, I have long suspected that Jazz isn't just a bunch of patterns and scales. It is a culture, an attitude, an approach, and way of thinking... this book not only confirms it, but it substantively will take you into the mind of its foremost vetarans and practitioners. With its balance between information that's anecdotal as well as analytical, and Berliner's excellent writing style (despite the size of the book, he just draws you in the pages flow by one by one) - - this is must reading... Almost a half a century ago Leonard Feather told us about the masters, now Berliner draws us into their minds. It is my hope that Jazz students (and fans) alike will begin taking up this book as they begin their journeys, and as a result, it invigorates and revitalizes the music as its never been before !
Rating:
Summary: A Monumental Breakthrough in Jazz Studies ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Review: The blurb on the back cover of this book has a slight understatement... It begins, "A landmark in jazz studies,"
Not since the advent of the long playing record and the publication of Leonard Feather's "Encyclopedia of Jazz" has anyone made such an enormous, substantive, light shedding contribution to Jazz (outside a recording studio.) This book is a must for everyone... and in fact, its divided into two parts... one which *is* for everyone, and goes into how musicians come up, hone their skills, learn to interact, develop and whatnot, and then the second half, which is more for musicians and features close to 400 pages of musical examples - - a text book in musical studies itself. As a musician myself, I have long suspected that Jazz isn't just a bunch of patterns and scales. It is a culture, an attitude, an approach, and way of thinking... this book not only confirms it, but it substantively will take you into the mind of its foremost vetarans and practitioners. With its balance between information that's anecdotal as well as analytical, and Berliner's excellent writing style (despite the size of the book, he just draws you in the pages flow by one by one) - - this is must reading... Almost a half a century ago Leonard Feather told us about the masters, now Berliner draws us into their minds. It is my hope that Jazz students (and fans) alike will begin taking up this book as they begin their journeys, and as a result, it invigorates and revitalizes the music as its never been before !
Rating:
Summary: A Monumental Breakthrough in Jazz Studies ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Review: The blurb on the back cover of this book has a slight understatement... It begins, "A landmark in jazz studies,"
Not since the advent of the long playing record and the publication of Leonard Feather's "Encyclopedia of Jazz" has anyone made such an enormous, substantive, light shedding contribution to Jazz (outside a recording studio.) This book is a must for everyone... and in fact, its divided into two parts... one which *is* for everyone, and goes into how musicians come up, hone their skills, learn to interact, develop and whatnot, and then the second half, which is more for musicians and features close to 400 pages of musical examples - - a text book in musical studies itself. As a musician myself, I have long suspected that Jazz isn't just a bunch of patterns and scales. It is a culture, an attitude, an approach, and way of thinking... this book not only confirms it, but it substantively will take you into the mind of its foremost vetarans and practitioners. With its balance between information that's anecdotal as well as analytical, and Berliner's excellent writing style (despite the size of the book, he just draws you in the pages flow by one by one) - - this is must reading... Almost a half a century ago Leonard Feather told us about the masters, now Berliner draws us into their minds. It is my hope that Jazz students (and fans) alike will begin taking up this book as they begin their journeys, and as a result, it invigorates and revitalizes the music as its never been before !
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