Jamey Aebersold Jazz, -- Jazz Guitar, Vol 1: The Most Widely Used Improvisation Method on the Market!, Spiral-bound Book & 2 CDs (PlayAlong, Vol 1)

I'm returning to jazz study after a couple decades away. When I was studying, the Jamey Aebersold series of play-along books were standard in learning how to improve your improvisational skills in the privacy of your own home. This version was not available back then. version one was the same for all instruments. so having a guitar-centric version is great. My main critique is that the fingerings are often not logical for someone who may have studied guitar previously using methods like those taught at Berklee College of Music. That program teaches that scales are contained "in position" meaning you have all of the notes of the scale within a 4 fret "box" with only the occasional movement of one finger for one or 2 notes outside that box by one fret. This allows for the least effort and most economical use of hand positioning. That, in turn, allows for smoother execution of scales. This book teaches many scales that force you to move your entire hand to a new position.the pros of this book are that you learn many scales very quickly, and if you need it, tablature is available. Those scales are then quickly applied to simple music examples which you can use to "learn" improvisational jazz techniques. Any serious player should take the time to learn how to read notation. It will only expedite the learning and ability to play with others later.The concepts and theories taught here are perfect for anyone studying beginning jazz improv. Some basic music theory knowledge will be helpful but its not required. Knowing basic theory will help one apply the modal concepts much quicker and have an understanding of context rather than just playing a scale for playing's sake. I suggest having a working knowledge of the concepts in the A Modern Method For Guitar Vol's 1-3 (from Berklee Press) in conjunction with these. Worth owning if you are beginning Jazz improv study.All the Jamey Aebersold books are great!

If you're a guitarist who wants to learn jazz improv GET THIS BOOK! 30 some years ago a bass player friend of mine introduced me to an Aebersold book(Blues something or other) at that time I was confused by it. How did it relate to guitar? This book has answered that question! Maybe now that I'm older and more experienced, I can understand it.Here's how I have been practicing it:First, go through the entire book as written, using the TAB/Notation.Second, if you are a complete beginner use Corey's scale patterns and go through the book again using each of his patterns, yeah, that's a lot of work. If you know a system of scale patterns (CAGED, Berklee), go through the book using each scale pattern. Sadistic, yeah, but well worth it!

This is the best preliminary jazz instruction book I have come across, and believe me I have a whole shelf of books that purport to beintroductory jazz instruction volumes. (I remember once starting with Johnny Smith's volume on guitar playing, not realizing he preferred to write using two stalves; I could follow it, but it wasn't a good place to start.) The writing, illustrations and practice pieces in Christiansen's book are remarkably clear. I assume the same can be said of the tablature in the book, but I can't really attest to it because I've never used tablature. The focus is on improvisation and to that end this book gives a helpful historical context for some of the instruction, admitting that players don't do all things the same way. My only criticism--and it's not really a criticism of this book--is that I believe all introductory volumes should be stamped--"Read A Simple Book About Classical Theory and Notation First"-- whether you're coming to jazz from rock, folk or whatever. I can't wait to see Volume 2. --Alan Weitz

This is a difficult book as far as trying to see what track goes with that exercise. Very poorly compiled. I cannot find where the demonstrarions start on each track. I would not buy this book again. I'm confused about this book.

If you are someone like me tries to find a way to practice jazz, you don't know how, this is it.

Given the vast scope of learning jazz improvisation, to have all the essential (overview) material in one volume is a great plus. It will (at a minimum) serves as a reference book and you can't go wrong by it. As another reviewer already commented earlier (4 stars review), the fingering used for the scales do not take advantage of the more economical (ergonomic) methods exists (hard to find anymore, and those are especially useful if you play a long scale guitar neck, 25.75" compare to 24.75". So if Berkeley school of music series provides such fingering it is highly recommended. But even Jody Fisher jazz series doesn't reveals the best ergonomic fingering for soloing scales on a guitar. However, this volume, does at least provides ergonomically efficients chords fingering, while Jody Fisher volume don't even do that !! Listen to what Joe Pass says in his video, 100% correct: that there is no need for those extremely "stretchy" fingering positions for either chords nor scales. Given that there is no one volume that does it all, one would need to navigate among several books. What I find out to be working well for me is to learn a lot of standards, play them well (chord melodies, single note solos and improvisation, and chords) while building up the theoretical knowledge in parallel. After I learn to perform a tune really well, then I analyze it to place it in the bigger perspective of the musical theory, and then improve on the way I already knew how to play it. Play a long with other musicians or a CD (looper, band in a box etc) is key, and Jamey's series emphasis this point.

It is spiral bound well laid out and easy to comprehend

A great fun guide to getting started in jazz guitar. I can actually follow the exercises and they are fun to work out. The two different tempo recordings make getting on board a lot easier. It might be a simple thing but the spiral binding makes the book so easy to use. Just pop it on a music stand and off you go. No more wrestling with a book trying to get it to stay on the stand. All music books will be like this some day.

great book

Excellent

La meilleur méthode pour l'impro Guitare ...en ayant utilisé quelques unes ...pas mal d'ailleurs ...mais ici c'est ce qui se fait de mieux ...et de loin ....tant en termes d'approche...enseignement ...théorie ...pédagogie ...contenu ...et progression...la construction est telle que l'on a l'impression d’être pris par la main ...pas à pas pour voir la globalité assez " rapidement "sans parler de l'accompagnement qui est toujours au sommet chez J .Aebersold