Creating The Jazz Solo

Throughout his life, Louis Armstrong tried to explain how singing with a barbershop quartet on the streets of New Orleans was foundational to his musicianship. Until now, there has been no in-depth inquiry into what he meant when he said, "I figure singing and playing is the same," or, "Singing was more into my blood than the trumpet." Creating the Jazz Solo: Louis Armstrong and Barbershop Harmony shows that Armstrong understood exactly the relationship between what he sang and what he played, and that he meant these comments to be taken literally: he was singing through his horn. To describe the relationship between what Armstrong sang and played, author Vic Hobson discusses elements of music theory with a style accessible even to readers with little or no musical background. Jazz is a music that is often performed by people with limited formal musical education. Armstrong did not analyze what he played in theoretical terms. Instead, he thought about it in terms of the voices in a barbershop quartet. Understanding how Armstrong, and other pioneer jazz musicians of his generation, learned to play jazz and how he used his background of singing in a quartet to develop the jazz solo has fundamental implications for the teaching of jazz history and performance today. This assertive book provides an approachable foundation for current musicians to unlock the magic and understand jazz the Louis Armstrong way.

Throughout his life, Louis Armstrong tried to explain how singing with a barbershop quartet on the streets of New Orleans was foundational to his musicianship. Until now, there has been no in-depth inquiry into what he meant when he said, “I figure singing and playing is the same,” or, “Singing was more into my blood than the trumpet.” Creating the Jazz Solo: Louis Armstrong and Barbershop Harmony shows that Armstrong understood exactly the relationship between what he sang and what he played, and that he meant these comments to be taken literally: he was singing through his horn. To describe the relationship between what Armstrong sang and played, author Vic Hobson discusses elements of music theory with a style accessible even to readers with little or no musical background. Jazz is a music that is often performed by people with limited formal musical education. Armstrong did not analyze what he played in theoretical terms. Instead, he thought about it in terms of the voices in a barbershop quartet. Understanding how Armstrong, and other pioneer jazz musicians of his generation, learned to play jazz and how he used his background of singing in a quartet to develop the jazz solo has fundamental implications for the teaching of jazz history and performance today. This assertive book provides an approachable foundation for current musicians to unlock the magic and understand jazz the Louis Armstrong way.

Many woodwind players come from a classical background which may not have taught you how to play by ear. While this can provide an excellent grounding in music, it doesn't teach you how to improvise, and often it's difficult for classically trained musicians to learn Jazz soloing. Beginner Jazz Soloing For Saxophone & Clarinet is the perfect guide to bridge the gap. Devised by Buster Birch (visiting jazz professor at Trinity Conservatoire), this book teaches a creative method for improvisation that's been road-tested at hundreds of workshops.

The purpose of this book is to help the student answer the question, 'What do Iplay?' It discusses elements of jazz, seventh chords, blues, riffs, vertical andhorizontal improvisation, playing through the changes, rhythm patterns, the scalar approach, substitution and much more!

Learn modern jazz guitar and theory with virtuoso Jens Larsen

The book Jazzmen (1939) claimed New Orleans as the birthplace of jazz and introduced the legend of Buddy Bolden as the “First Man of Jazz.” Much of the information that the book relied on came from a highly controversial source: Bunk Johnson. He claimed to have played with Bolden and that together they had pioneered jazz. Johnson made many recordings talking about and playing the music of the Bolden era. These recordings have been treated with skepticism because of doubts about Johnson’s credibility. Using oral histories, the Jazzmen interview notes, and unpublished archive material, this book confirms that Bunk Johnson did play with Bolden. This confirmation, in turn, has profound implications for Johnson’s recorded legacy in describing the music of the early years of New Orleans jazz. New Orleans jazz was different from ragtime in a number of ways. It was a music that was collectively improvised, and it carried a new tonality—the tonality of the blues. How early jazz musicians improvised together and how the blues became a part of jazz has until now been a mystery. Part of the reason New Orleans jazz developed as it did is that all the prominent jazz pioneers, including Buddy Bolden, Bunk Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Johnny Dodds, and Kid Ory, sang in barbershop (or barroom) quartets. This book describes in both historical and musical terms how the practices of quartet singing were converted to the instruments of a jazz band, and how this, in turn, produced collectively improvised, blues-inflected jazz, that unique sound of New Orleans.

(Fake Book). This amazing collection transcribes nearly 150 of the best-known jazz solos (regardless of the instrument) exactly as recorded by icons of the trade, including: Autumn Leaves (Chet Baker) * Blue in Green (Toots Thielemans) * Blue Train (John Coltrane) * Bright Size Life (Jaco Pastorius) * Dolphin Dance (Herbie Hancock) * Footprints (Wayne Shorter) * I Do It for Your Love (Bill Evans) * I Mean You (Thelonius Monk) * Isreal (Bill Evans) * K.C. Blues (Charlie Parker) * Milestones (Miles Davis) * New Orleans (Wynton Marsalis) * Nuages (Django Reinhardt) * Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Oscar Peterson) * Spring Ain't Here (Pat Metheny) * Stella by Starlight (Ray Brown) * Waltz for Debby (Cannonball Adderley) * West End Blues (Louis Armstrong) * and many more.

Chuck Marohnic gives the keyboard player a basic vocabulary of scales and chords, chord changes and voicings. Included is information about the cycle of fifths, the III-V-I progression, chord substitutions, blues, turn-arounds, relative majors/minors.