Month: October 2014

How to solo

If you’ve ever written a letter of complaint you’ll know that there is one basic ground rule to ensure a positive outcome: be concise and stick to the point. In other words, don’t ramble. If you’re returning a broken radio, your main point is that it’s not fit for purpose. To supplement this with an… Read more »

essential jazz standards part 3

Here’s my final list of suggestions for your jazz repertoire. These are all essential jazz standards that you should become familiar with. Although I’ve listed 14 tunes, I suggest you at least learn What Is This Thing Called Love, Softly As In A Morning Sunrise and Yesterdays. For more of a challenge, take a look… Read more »

Learning jazz standards, part 2. (Full list in book 3)

The best way when learning jazz standards is to identify the map, in other words, spot the key centres. Autumn Leaves only has two, but All The Things You Are moves through  no less than five keys! Here are 10 more jazz tunes you need to be familiar with.  Although they are all popular, the… Read more »

Essential Jazz repertoire, part 1.

As you build up your collection of essential jazz repertoire it’s likely that the bulk of your growing collection will consist of what is known as jazz standards. Although this term covers a wide range of material, it usually refers to well known songs played by jazz musicians but originally written for Broadway musicals by… Read more »