Beginning Jazz Guitar (Book & DVD)

Anyone with a knowledge of basic chords and guitar scale fingerings can dig right in and start learning to play jazz right away. Spanning from the major scale and basic triad theory all the way up to extended chords and the modes, this book features a full-length etude or song to go with every new concept introduced. Beginning Jazz Guitar breaks the age-old tradition of dry, intimidating and confusing jazz books, and provides an actual step-by-step and enjoyable method for learning to play in this style. Clearly organized into easily mastered segments, each chapter is divided into separate lessons on harmony or improvisation. All music is shown in standard notation and TAB, and the CD demonstrates the examples in the book. 96 pages.
Customer Review: Good Book to Learn More Sophisticated Guitar
First off, when this book says “beginning,” it does NOT mean it is targeted to a complete beginner to guitar. It means it is written for a guitarist who knows the basics of rock guitar and would like to learn more about the more sophisticated and traditional jazz style.

The book assumes that you already know a couple scales (pentatonics, etc.) and most standard rock chords, and I greatly appreciated that it assumed I knew these, because I was afraid the book would be too “dumb” in the beginning.

This book is fantastic… it shows you what to play with clear diagrams and explanations and all the etudes and songs are written in TAB and traditional so it exposes you to playing guitar using traditional notation, which is an important skill.

I highly recommend this book. If you are a fairly good intermediate-level rock guitarist who knows all the basic open and barre chords, this book will pick up right where you want it to and help you add some sophistication to your playing… all you have to do is practice what it teaches you!
Customer Review: First book in an excellent jazz series
I got Beginning Jazz Guitar to go with the others in the series which I already have: Intermediate, Mastering Chord/Melody, and Mastering Improvisation. Beginning Jazz Guitar and Intermediate Jazz Guitar both have A (chords and Harmony) and B (Improvisation) sections. The two more advanced books cover these two topics in greater depth. The A + B approach is effective and also allows learners to choose what they want to concentrate on.

The A Section in Beginning Jazz Guitar starts from a very basic situation and covers basic chords and string sets, triads, extended and altered chords.

The B Section deals largely with major scale fingerings and briefly with modes from the major scale.

There are also some excellent notes on technique, practice, and soloing.

There are various etudes and tunes to play which match the teaching points.

The accompanying CD has 38 tracks to listen to and play along with.

This is in my opinion the best series available for anyone wanting to play jazz guitar and understand easily what it’s all about. Beginning Jazz Guitar is probably the best book of its type by a master jazz guitarist. “BUY NOW”