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Rating: 
Summary: For serious study
Review: Mehegan's book is written for piano players, but will be valuable to other musicians as well. The book presents a large number of standards for study, focusing on thinking from the harmonic structure. I has lots of ideas to guide practice and study, but it is for serious work only: unlike some books that can be approached at various levels and still offer some rewards, this one requires that you sit down and work. It does offer rewards, though
Rating:
Summary: For serious study
Review: Mehegan's book is written for piano players, but will be valuable to other musicians as well. The book presents a large number of standards for study, focusing on thinking from the harmonic structure. I has lots of ideas to guide practice and study, but it is for serious work only: unlike some books that can be approached at various levels and still offer some rewards, this one requires that you sit down and work. It does offer rewards, though
Rating: 
Summary: As thorough as you can get.
Review: Mehegan's works serve as indispensable sources for all jazz pianists since he devises lessons that are simply not found elsewhere; I have a good library of quality jazz books, but let me emphasize some of the things that are hardly addressed in other books. In volume one, you get:
1.) Complete right hand fingering suggestions for seventh arpeggios. Some may consider these obvious, but it's an erroneous assumption. This is the only book in my collection that gives clear instructions on practicing seventh chord arpeggios in all qualities (major, minor, dominant, half-diminished, diminished). Most other works focus exclusively on triads.
2.) Good fingering suggestions for diminished and half-diminished scales.
3.) Scale-tone sevenths in all keys.
4.) Inversions in all qualities.
5.) Dozens of progressions.
6.) Transcription exercises.
7.) Modal material.
The list goes on, and this is only in volume 1. There's enough for a few lifetimes. The other works in the set are just as complete.
As a final point, many readers have raised questions about the author's use of figured bass, but it's important to understand his goal. Early on in volume one, he argues that using letters for chords (Ab, Cm7, etc.) limits you to one key. If you learn the roman numeral relationships in a progression, you can transpose it to any key. In fact, he deliberately does this to get you to think across the keys. The author obviously knows chord progressions in original keys, but he is challenging readers to think in terms of the roman numerals in order to develop ease at transposition. The other part deals with the intervallic displacements that occur when you invert chords. Basically--you have four inversions, and he designates them with the figured bass system. But don't be intimidated by thinking that you'll be overwhelmed with new information. If anything, it can clarify your thinking--of course, if you're willing to do the work.
Serious students can't go wrong with these monumental and historical works--whether they use them sequentially or occasionally for great practice ideas.
Rating: 
Summary: Be careful when buying this book - or books from this series
Review: This book might be good, but only for one who has previous experience in playing Jazz piano. It really does not teach you the principles and help you learn jazz. Its more like an exercise book to help improve a already-know-how-to jazz pianist w/ tons of songs inside for practise (and by the way, you would have to have the sheet music for the songs inside to refer to). I personally do not recommend it for beginners.
Rating:
Summary: Be careful when buying this book - or books from this series
Review: This book might be good, but only for one who has previous experience in playing Jazz piano. It really does not teach you the principles and help you learn jazz. Its more like an exercise book to help improve a already-know-how-to jazz pianist w/ tons of songs inside for practise (and by the way, you would have to have the sheet music for the songs inside to refer to). I personally do not recommend it for beginners.
Rating:
Summary: Jazz How-To
Review: This serious, authoritative book turned me on to jazz. The author presents the material in bite size chunks. He has a gift for pulling structure from the chaos. This is not Jazz-For-Dummies. The reader is expected to be hard working, but needs no previous experience with jazz. The reader should have access to a piano to play the various chord sequences, but the lessons are invaluable to all instrumentalists.One downside to this book it that you have to learn the author's unusual notation (figured bass), but the power of this notation is also the book's greatest strength. The notation reveals the structure of jazz and the similarities between the songs. And, hey, Bach used the same notation, so it can't be all bad. The author gives the chord changes to many common jazz songs. Usually no particular artist or recording is referenced. So, the reader has to hunt around to find performances that resemble the changes the author has given. Once again, this is my favorite book on the subject. It is never unnecessarily pedantic. It never waters down difficult concepts. The way the book talks about music is how musicians think about music. If this book is not enough, other books in this series by John Mehegan pick up where this one leaves off.
Rating:
Summary: Jazz How-To
Review: This serious, authoritative book turned me on to jazz. The author presents the material in bite size chunks. He has a gift for pulling structure from the chaos. This is not Jazz-For-Dummies. The reader is expected to be hard working, but needs no previous experience with jazz. The reader should have access to a piano to play the various chord sequences, but the lessons are invaluable to all instrumentalists. One downside to this book it that you have to learn the author's unusual notation (figured bass), but the power of this notation is also the book's greatest strength. The notation reveals the structure of jazz and the similarities between the songs. And, hey, Bach used the same notation, so it can't be all bad. The author gives the chord changes to many common jazz songs. Usually no particular artist or recording is referenced. So, the reader has to hunt around to find performances that resemble the changes the author has given. Once again, this is my favorite book on the subject. It is never unnecessarily pedantic. It never waters down difficult concepts. The way the book talks about music is how musicians think about music. If this book is not enough, other books in this series by John Mehegan pick up where this one leaves off.
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