In the last issue of the American Music Teacher, there was a brief review of the new Jazz Piano Basics series by Eric Baumgartner (apparently, it’s “a revised and vastly expanded version of the Jazzabilities series”). It piqued my curiosity, so I decided to order books 1 and 2.
I confess that I’m not especially a Jazz lover (please don’t hold that against me…), but I am continually looking for ways to grow in improvising and in my ability to play from a lead sheet. Whether it’s sitting down at a piano without any printed music on hand or playing with our church worship music team, I have lots of room to grow as a pianist. Along with that, I want to continue adding to my understanding of how to systematically teach these skills to my students so that they will be prepared for whatever musical opportunities come their way.
So far, I love everything about how the books are designed, and I think they will be an awesome learning tool! The accompanying website with hundreds of professionally recorded audio tracks is a necessity and doubles as a great way to focus on ear-training (one set of the tracks for each exercise is a Q&A pattern where you can either play back the melodic pattern or respond with a complementary musical response).
If you’re looking for a well-designed, systematic approach to either learn Jazz piano or teach it to your students, I highly recommend these Jazz Piano Basics books. And I’ll try to report back as I get further along to let you know how it’s going!
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Allysia says
Thanks for the suggestion Natalie! I’ve never studied jazz in earnest (or taught it) so I’m always looking for a good place to start. Eric Baumgartner is pretty solid as well!