Learning jazz/blues piano, when grade 4/5 std Options

[PatC]

First, apologies for repeating this question, which I posted into a thread in the Teachers forum a few days ago, but no comments were forthcoming there.

I'm an adult learner of piano, about grade 4 /5 standard, with rusty grade 5 theory. Having recently started learning Mike Cornick's First Impression (alternative grade 5 piece) and surprising myself by enjoying it, I got Exploring Jazz Piano by Tim Richards from the library, but then saw in his intro that he "strongly advises" working through his Improvising Blues Piano first (they didn't have that in the library, so I haven't looked at it yet).

Any thoughts on this, and also how these books compare with the Hal Leonard Scales Patterns Improv book, for an adult working through them on her own? (I have a piano teacher but we generally do classical stuff in lessons, which is fine by me). I don't envisage ever doing any jazz exams; it's just for pure enjoyment, and hopefully consolidating my theory, which sadly doesn't seem to carry over into my playing at all at the moment.

PatC

[dorfmouse]

Do you know the forums at Pianoworld.com? They have a non-classical forum which might be helpful. Just had a quick look and very quickly came across a huge thread on Tim Richards Improvising Blues Piano for example.

[Scooby Doo]

I think you would find the Scales Patterns books very straightforwad to work through on your own and these would be a very useful starting point. The Tim Richards books are excellent, but fairly densely packed with ideas. a really sound knowledge of chords will be useful for your classical work too. I'm using the first chords patterns book with a jazz learner and supplementing with ideas from Tim Richards - they go together well!

[PatC]

Thank you Dorfmouse and Scooby Doo. I think I will go and look at them in Chappells, but it sounds like- start with the Scales and Patterns book and then move on to the Tim Richards one. (Had a quick look at the pianoworld.com forum but I think one music forum is enough for me, otherwise I will never get anything else done!)

PatC