This book is intended as a starting place for any instrumentalist looking grow their understanding and practice of jazz music, style, and improvisation.  There are many places where one may start to develop their jazz knowledge, experience, and practice – these pages offer one path to take and provides concepts to explore in group or private lessons.  These modules are intended to be sequential –approaches introduced in the first section should be applied in subsequent sections.  We encourage students to play exercises as slow as necessary to be in control of their instrument and to repeat activities until they become easy to recall and smoothly executed.  Velocity and automation are not end goals in themselves, but pathways to deeper understanding.

Recommended materials:

• An instrument in good working condition
• Staff paper/pencil
• A smart phone, tablet, or computer w/internet access
• Quality headphones
• Play-a-longs and/or apps such as iRealPro

We’ve chosen to organize the material into 4 modules :

Module 1: Building Blocks of a Jazz Improvisation Vocabulary

Module 2: Basic 12-bar Blues Form

Module 3: Expanding on The Blues – Approaches to “Solar”

Module 4: Introduction to 32-bar “Song Form” – Approaches to “What is This Thing Called Love?”

A note on “Practice”

Practice is a specific act that requires time, focus, consistency, and an appetite for honesty in self-critique, care with ones’ own individual self-conception/ego, and the patience to endure periods of rapid growth followed by periods of relative stagnation.  It is difficult to make progress if there are no attainable goals or other markers of progress, be they time or activity.  If ones’ goal is to “just get better” – that simply isn’t specific enough.  Practice is not playing.  Playing – rehearsals, gigs, playing solo in your practice space – is an
important, necessary and often joyful experience. Playing can have element of practice.  But to improve in sustainable and meaningful ways one must slow down, be repetitive, and set goals.

Limitations:

The intention of this textbook is primarily for instrumental students seeking a richer and deeper understanding of the technical and creative aspects of jazz improvisation. The intended audience for this text includes college-level musicians who have experience playing their instrument, can read music, possess a working knowledge of some music theory, and are looking to engage with common practice approaches to jazz improvisation.

Jazz music is explicitly diverse in its creation, highlighting the cultures, identities, and languages of many historically marginalized groups in American culture. In our view, 21st-century jazz is at its best when it celebrates the genre’s diversity. However, the cultural, artistic, and political significance of jazz music to its Black American progenitors and the world at large is beyond the scope of this technical manual for improvisers. Those interested in these stories are encouraged to take one of the many Music Humanities (MHL) courses offered in the Maricopa County Community College District, especially MHL 145 American Jazz and Popular Music, as that course highlights the variety of jazz musicians and styles in a less technical learning environment.

Additionally, the design of this course does not integrate well with screen readers due to the nature of music notation and the inclusion of play-along tracks for practice.

Musical Examples and Copywrite 

All musical examples in this text – from the play-a-long to the links directing to Spotify Playlists – are intended for educational purposes only.  The creators of these musical examples maintain their copywrites and the authors cite “fair use” policies in their usage and sharing of this musical material.

This Book is an Open Educational Resource. It is designed as a living document to be adapted and utilized by Teachers and Learners at no cost.

Except where otherwise specified this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to share and adapt this work with proper attribution.