Beginning Jazz Guitar

Rating:
Summary: A great resource!
Review: I've been playing guitar on and off for about 20 years and have only recently started trying to learn about jazz guitar. I purchased three other books before finding this one and they all had some pretty serious shortcomings. I found this one in a bookstore and after thumbing through it found it to be extremely well laid out and full of really useful information. Each section is broken down into lessons for comping and lessons for soloing so you can alter the way you go through the book to suit your own focus. It does assume some basic knowlege, but if you're interested in learning jazz guitar you probably already know the major, minor and 7th chords already and major and minor scales which is about all that's assumed. I bought a version with the cd, but so far I haven't really had the need to listen to it. I really like the idea that there are another three books which follow this so that if I ever master the material in this book I know where I can go to further my study. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Probably the best tutorial in print
Review: I've played guitar for more than thirty years and have focused on straight ahead jazz for the last 15 or so. All that time I've absorbed bits and pieces of musical knowledge from method books, lick guides and transcriptions as well as from the experience gained playing with others. No resource that I've encountered offers the degree of fundamental understanding that one can gain from this series of books.

Unlike most other method books, "Beginning Jazz Guitar" starts from chapter 1 with a dual track instruction mode of chord and scale studies mixed with a moderate dose of musical theory AND the author wisely limits the first volume to just the major scale. Too many other fine publications insist on bedeviling the student with a bewildering array of scales and modes in rapid fire succession. This volume shines when it comes to supplying answers to real world questions as the student might actually encounter them. Additionally, Jody Fisher presents scales in a format that encourages horizontal rather than vertical playing (one of the most important and most overlooked aspect of improvisation). As a matter of fact, more experienced players may have to relearn scale positions to work through the etudes and excercises in this book since they are fundamentally different than those normally found in most instructional texts.

Likewise, for a beginning book, the text does a credible job in presenting harmony and chord progressions with just enough theory to understand how progressions are structured and how to extend and alter chords. Most books present chordal theory in the first part of the book and then take up lead playing in the second half as if they bore no relationship with one another. Again, the author scores with the dual track approach.

Finally, the information contained in the "Coda" at the end of the book is worth the price alone. One could spend half a lifetime studying jazz guitar and not stumble over some these gems of info.

As a companion to this book I might also recommend "All Solos & Grooves for Jazz Guitar" by Jim Ferguson (Mel Bay) which serves up major scale studies along with more advanced solos utilizing similar techniques. As a matter of fact all of Ferguson's books would fit in nicely with this series.

All in all, an excellent resource for the determined student.

Rating:
Summary: More than 'Beginning' !
Review: In my 8 years of playing, I haven't seen a book or resource that organizes things so well, and in such a way that if you literally just follow the advice and material in the book, you can trust it to make you a much better player. Can't wait to get the next in the series ...'Intermediate'.