Solo Jazz Guitar

Rating:
Summary: Great intro to jazz guitar. Review from former student.
Review: I took lessons from Bill, and can tell you he is one smart fella, a great player and teacher. Solo Jazz Guitar is a great learning tool for the intermediate level guitarist, including the guitarist who is just starting to get into jazz. It doesn't cover everything about jazz, but it does something better: it demystifies jazz guitar playing. It makes you feel like jazz is not a monolithic skill only geniuses can master, but a means of exploring your own musical ideas. Isn't that what jazz is truly all about?

Lessons illustrate 11 chord melody concepts, and then apply them to 20 jazz standards. Reharmonization topics include diatonic and minor third substitutions, contrary motion, back cycling, walking bass lines, modal chord scales, and more. Songs are in standard notation and Tab. They include All the Things You Are, Cherokee, Giant Steps, My Romance, and more.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I was excited about this book, I thought there would be some good insight and tunes. I thought I'd learn the book's chord melodys - play through em etc... I was wrong.

What you do get is some methods for playing solo guitar (the reason its not 1 star) and some lame chord melody arrangements.

What makes them lame you ask?

Well the voice leading isn't that good, the fingerings are hard to play and the chords used are mainly vanilla. What I was looking for was Galbraith but I didn't know it then.