The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Jazz Piano Book
Book Review: Ten Stars!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Please read the other reviews. In my forty years of practicing, playing, and studying music in general and the piano in particular I have never seen such a well thought out, comprehensive, completely understandable, easy to read, value packed, exquitely formatted, thoroughly useful book on this subject. There is not any '....' to be found. It cannot possibly tell you everything you need to know, but it does tell you everything you need to know to find out the rest. Any one who does not derive tons of benefit from this book is simply too lazy to really study and assimilate what it has to say. Period.Mark is to be commended, and Sher Publishing, too, for the lavish attention they paid to presenting a book whose production quality is on a par with its content. Also highly recommended is a new work by Randy Halberstadt, also published by Sher (check their website), called 'Metaphors for the Musician'. Master the information in these two books, Put it to use it by learning lots of tunes, and the only thing standing in the way of your success will be the amount of talent you actually have. What they don't cover, you probably don't need!!!
Book Review: The Jazz Piano Bible
Summary: 5 Stars
This is certainly no "Learn Piano Jazz" book and CD combo. You know the type: 15 progressivly harder lessons that get you to do just that. 15 things.This, on the other hand, is a serious, complete, and deep-diving plunge into the inner workings of Jazz piano. If you are bored and want a shallow understanding of Jazz piano, buy a cheap book and CD combo. If you want to play the classic jazz standards, buy the sheet music. If you want to deeply and truly understand jazz piano, buy this book.
Book Review: The best book about playing jazz that I own
Summary: 5 Stars
I dont play piano, I don't own a piano, but I study piano to understand guitar and violin. About 15 years ago I started to get bored with popular music and started studying jazz and classical exclusively. I remember my first experience with trying to learn jazz, there were all these chords I had no idea how to play or what the symbols meant. A few years later I played bass in a jazz band and one of the horn players had this book and I bought it right away.
Since then I have bought many more books on playing jazz and this is the best one I own. This book starts with some basic review of chords scales and triads and then starts to explain the basics of forming 3 note chords and gradually gets into more advanced chord theory including the different styles of the most famous jazz pianists (powell, monk, hancock, tyner, and evans) who created their own style of forming chords. Even if you have an instrument that isnt capable of playing chords, this book will help you understand the mechanics of jazz and will help bring understanding to a page full of chord symbols that translates to any instrument.
I cant imagine how hard it would have been to learn to play jazz without this book, I give it my highest recommendation. Please remember the theory in this book can be applied to any instrument even if you have no desire to play the piano.
Book Review: The definitive jazz piano instructional book
Summary: 5 Stars
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
Book Review: This is THE piano book.
Summary: 5 Stars
As a guitarist/percussionist who had piano lessons as a kid (and hated them) I have always been a little intimidated by the piano. Toward my goal of being able to comp and improvise over changes, I have purchased several jazz piano method books, including titles by Jerry Coker and Dan Haerle, and they have all been helpful.Mark Levine's book, however, is exceptional. He introduces his concepts in perfect-sized chapters, with musical examples bracketed by coherent and engaging explanations. There are dozens of very musical exercises, and lists of suggested jazz standards for applying them. He conveys the essential elements of jazz theory in an easy-to-digest but highly intelligent anecdotal writing style.
The pacing of how material is presented in a method book is very important to the advancing musician. For example, I always knew that the melodic minor scale was important, but it only fully came together in my head when I worked through Mark's chapters on scale theory. Instead of being bombarded with chord voicing options, there are two or three. The emphasis is on getting you prepared enough to play music! Helpful hints seem to appear just as you need them, and Mark's enthusiasm for the piano provides subtle encouragement for the exhausting but rewarding process of learning jazz.
This is a book which stays on my music stand. It's large but spiral-bound. The font size is just right, and notes are professionally typeset (I hate books where you spend half your time deciphering notes from the author's scrawl). Bonus points for the great photos and the recommended discographies from all periods of jazz.
I would recommend this book to any intermediate to advanced player looking to expand and strengthen his or her abilities to comp and solo on piano. No one book can teach you everything, but this one is a hell of a start.