Creative Jazz Improvisation (3rd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: I don't buy the author's concept!
Review: I am wondering why this book contains some jazz solo transcriptions of "hard-to-find" recordings. Does the author think light of listening to/learning from actual recording stuff? For example, Woody Shaw's "Child's Dance" is not a good example to learn pentatonic usages in jazz. Why did not the author use Coltrane's "Pursuance" or any McCoy's solo (available from CD market)? Where can students get the "odd-choice Woody Shaw" recording? Never heard of it. I do not buy the author's concept: learning from written solos without listening to recordings. It is stupid!

I do not know why, but there is no copyright agreement notice under the excerpted solo transcriptions. Does the publisher pay for the copyright? I would appreciate if the publisher could show the due-respect for jazz artists by listing the copyright publisher notice.

On the surface, this book seems like a well-organized book; however, most materials of this book text have been repeatedly discussed in the previous jazz books (usually available from Charles Colin, Jamey Aebersold, Hal Leonard, Sher Music, Down Beats articles, Alfred music, etc). In other words, it's well-organized but it's NOT original. For these reasons, I would give only two stars to this book.

Rating:
Summary: I don't buy the author's concept!
Review: This book has an excellent explanation of harmony, keys, modes, scales, chords and music theory of all styles of jazz improvisation. It includes listening exercises, how to practice etc.

The book includes an anthology of famous records with transcriptions of famous jazz solos from Louis Armstrong to contemporary artists.

I have not found a better text book to explain the basic music theory of harmony, chords and scales.

This was designed to be a college textbook but high school level players will learn from this book.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent primer for the intermediate to advanced player
Review: This book is for any instrument, and the only qualification is that you must know how to play chromatically in two octaves on your instrument. Each chapter is organized around learning a single scale/mode, or on common progressions (ii-V-I) and song forms such as the blues, rhythm changes, and sectional forms. The emphasis is on building proficiency in playing all scales and modes in all twelve keys, and in building a vocabulary (also in all twelve keys) through the practice of licks and by learning the transcribed solos. I think anyone serious about learning jazz would benefit from this book; at a minimum, it will provide explanations of scales and their use for reference, and as a source of exercises and patterns for years to come.

Rating:
Summary: Right for class, wrong for self-learning
Review: This is an excellent text when used in a classroom environment, accompanied with audio examples from a teacher and selected recordings, annotated throughout the text (mostly references to J. Aebersold's Play-Along series). The high-level classification of important jazz innovators in the "Whom to Listen To" section alone is worth a long read. Coverage of the scales, progressions, rhythms and structures is well organized. I can't think of a better single book on which to base class-room teaching of jazz improvisation. Any criticism that this book is "unoriginal" is misplaced; that's not the purpose of the book.

It is definitely less useful as a self-learning tool. For this purpose I believe there is no way around a few book-cd combos such as Ferrara's Jazz Piano and Harmony. Unless you want to spend time tracking down the recordings referred to by this Reeves book.