Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Tough book

Customer Rating:

Great book but tough. This is not a book for people who simply want to learn about jazz or how to play in a jazz style. This is a book for people who want to play jazz and are familiar with jazz. The book consistently uses references to famous recordings that jazz fans will be familiar with. This is great in that if you know your jazz that you will be able to know what the author is talking about when he explains II-V-I progressions or how a sus chord leaves a suspended feel. Don't get this book if you: don't know how to play piano; are not familiar with jazz; can not read music; don't know all major and minor keys. I am on chapter 8 in this book, and sus chords, phrygian chords, rootless chords, tritonation, and right hand modifications to rootless chords has already been covered. If you are a jazz fan and want to not just play by feel but know what you are doing, this book will suit you.

A review for the Beginner

Customer Rating:

My Background: I have played trombone in concert band in elementary school and high school. I could sight read for trombone. I have tinkered with the piano for years during that time. I would say no formal training in piano. Now: After 4 years with this book I now play piano for two churches (by ear), one as a paid position the other as a volunteer. I have been playing at these churches for 2+ years. I owe a lot of where I am to the explanations, background, tips and practice suggestions in this book. What you will need to know before being able to use this book: * Being able to read music in both clefs (you do not necessarily need to sight-read but I'm sure it would help me). * A decent sounding keyboard or piano to practice on * A desire to practice (there are people who will buy this book and never practice expecting things to just enter their brains through osmosis). This book takes you from the beginning and explains things in a concise manner. After 4 years, I have probably covered about 25% of this book in terms of things that I have internalized. The covers have ripped off because I use it so much. Things I am practicing right now: * Upper structures * 4th Chords * Left hand voicings * Chord substitutions The best thing about this book for me, is that it has shown me how to interpret music that I see and chords that more advanced musicians play. For example, once you realize that a IV chord is so similar to a I chord (with the exception of the 4ths), then you realize that you can approach a IV chord just like you would a I chord by imitating a ii-V7-I. This would mean approaching the chord by playing a minor V, a dominant I and then IV. After buying the book and reading it, you will understand what I just wrote and also realize the beauty of that movement to spice up your older hymns (which have tons of IV chords with nothing to help you move to them). If you are a hard working musician with a God-given talent for music and you are interested in Jazz Piano, I would advise you to purchase this book. Get a "Real Book" (search on Amazon) to help you along (I got one recently and realized that it would have helped a lot more if I knew this) Things that made this book a great buy for me: * Scale Theory * Scale fingerings and how to practice scales (differs from classical practice and helps with improving) * Adding notes to 3 note voicings * Chord substitutions (Tritone substitution, phrygian chords, upper structures for Dominant chords)... these always impress people and are explained simply in this book. And I'm not even done working on the other stuff. Now, I need to learn how to sight-read.

"The" book for playing jazz on piano

Customer Rating:

This is not an easy book to get a handle on. Beginner's may be overwhelmed. Intermediate students will need help in structuring the topics and lessons. Advanced students will probably find plenty of nuggets of jazz wisdom to make the purchase of this book worthwhile. As a long time musician relatively new to jazz, I find this book extremely valuable for learning about jazz, but it isn't terribly helpful in improving my piano chops. I still give it five stars because I didn't buy it to learn the piano so much as to learn jazz, and obviously, jazz piano. That may sound crazy, but it makes sense when you realize there aren't many specific "drills" to learn the various aspects that Levine teaches about jazz and specifically, jazz piano. Yeah, he may say something like, "Be sure you can do this in all twelve keys", but you're not going to stop reading the book, rush to the piano and practice for four weeks before you continuing reading. The kind of stuff he "teaches" takes a lifetime of experience and playing to learn. So I appreciate being told about it, and I like having some perspective added to such a very deep field of music, but after you buy this book, you're still going to need to do some drills, (try Jazz Chord Hanon: 70 Exercises for the Beginning to Professional Pianist, Jazz Hanon (Private Lessons), Post-Bop Jazz Piano - The Complete Guide with CD!: Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series (Hal Leonard Keyboard Style), and even Piano Essentials: Scales, Chords, Arpeggios, and Cadences for the Contemporary Pianist (Book & CD)), learn some songs (use The Real Book: Sixth Edition), and get some instruction (try your local community college or music store). In short, Levine's book is a wonderful map and a readable, useful guide for just about anyone with interest in playing jazz on the piano.

you could do better than this	Customer Rating:
The author states (I don't know his exact words) that 6/9 chords are essentially equivalent to maj7 chords and throughout the book he uses them interchangeably. To me this is an example of slipshod thinking and therefore I wonder just how far one can trust this author. On the plus side, the discography is excellent.

The definitive jazz piano instructional book

Customer Rating:

I have searched high and low for a comprehensive instructional book that contains equal parts application and exercises. This is the book. The book is replete with snippets of famous jazz songs that provide a window into the techniques of many great players, and Mr. Levine is thoughtful enough to provide source albums and songs for listening purposes. Additionally, the book provides you, early on, with a method for interpreting songs out of the real book. With this easy method, you can instantly begin building a repertoire of material, and revisit these songs with the techniques learned in later chapters