I pop back to this site from time to time, i'm very dissapointed that it is not the haven of activity that it once was. Why?

Any way to any of you pro or semi pro jazzers out their, i'm looking for some new material for my band, i've picked up the ABRSM Real book and found loads of tunes i really like and use in my quartet and now i need more good tunes. What books are worth looking at, theirs no news of a grade 6-8 Real Book yet which is a real dissapointment, oh well.........................

There's always been a disproportionate lack of interest in jazz on this site. It's probably because there just aren't enough experienced jazz piano teachers out there teaching jazz piano, and the syllabus doesn't cover enough other instruments yet for there to be much take-up elsewhere either.

A non-jazz performing piano teacher can only teach so much jazz until they run out of steam because it isn't their main focus of interest, and in all honesty should they really be teaching jazz if they don't perform it themselves?

I've recently given jazz lessons to a couple of instrument teachers; their aim is to go and teach jazz to their own pupils, but I have grave doubt in their ability to pass much on, because their own improvisational skills are so germinal. Perhaps I should be a bit more circumspect in who I teach!

I just wish the AB could hurry up and make the jazz syllabus available to all instruments. Meanwhile, I just keep playing and teaching jazz as much as I possibly can. A pupil's coming 12 miles for her jazz violin lesson today, which shows just how few jazz violin teachers there are, in my area at least; in fact, I seem to be the only one in a 50 mile radius around here!!

As to your search for material, I got a lot of mine just from listening to CD's (well, records and tapes back then), and working out the chords and melodies. This is also VERY good for the ear, and you can access tunes that might not be available in any real books. It can sound a bit cliched to just play the familiar old standards over and over again, and there's just so much out there....

Violinia

Uhhhhh, Violinia....

This can't be at all healthy... I keep agreeing with you! What's going on?!

Seriously, I can't understand how someone who doesn't actually play some jazz can hope to teach it. I mean, you feel it, not just transfer printed music to whatever instrument - the grand woohoo seems of growing popularity these days!

I'm not sure whether it's quite the "you've either got it or you haven't" syndrome because I believe we all have rhythm, we all (hopefully) have emotions and some sensuality but it doesn't mean that people can necessarily tap into these things or develop the aural and technical wherewithall to be able to use what they find.

It would seem that you have to take your ability at chord/harmony recognition and/or replication for granted so you can 'compose on the fly' even if you are effectively creating variations - and this doesn't seem to be in the normal "classical" curriculum.

So, right, AB classical teachers ought really to get out there and do some gigs before attempting to teach jazz. I would rate the chances of learning to play jazz from a book about the same as I would learning about sex from a book, if I might be so bold...

R

Sex from a book - lol!! Yes, Rhapsodin - what's happened to us? We appear to be getting on!

I think the reason teachers are asking me to show them how to teach jazz is demand - there's a real demand for it out there. I've given two one-hour jazz lessons today and am about to take my son to his jazz sax lesson...

Everybody wants jazz all of a sudden...

But you can't teach jazz unless you like it; you can't play it unless you like it, and you can't even think of doing either unless you listen to it - which is what I've told all the teachers who've come to me to pick my brains, but I don't know if any of them really listened...

Anyway, you owe me a PM!

Violinia

This seems to be a case for listening rather than reading the music!

Santa appears to have set aside a CD called "Violon Jazz 1927-1944" (Fremeaux) for Viohazard's stocking, though Santa was tempted to rip off the cellophane and have at it, curious to hear the Stuff Smith tracks...

Everybody in our family likes Swing, so we have a couple of earlier Grappelli CDs. "Stephane's Tune" is a favorite, but appears to be different selection from the 2-CD set listed under the same name elsewhere.

What about Regina Carter? I hear her jazz is well regarded, but haven't heard any of her recordings?

I've heard some Regina Carter though not as much as I should have done. She's OK, but not particularly flamboyant in her playing - perhaps a little one-dimensional? But who am I to judge!!!

I did hear her on the radio a few weeks ago though, and the track was so lovely - a Latin tune - I felt very tempted to go and buy the album. Perhaps Santa will oblige..

Violinia

Talking of radio, I have recently acquired a digital radio and can now get Jazz FM, so I tune in most eveings between 7.00 and 10.00 pm and catch what I can of "Dinner Jazz". While a lot of it is on the easy-listening side (you won't hear the likes of Louis Sclavis et al), you do get to hear from great stuff most evenings, and the DJ, a Sarah somebody-or-other, has turned me onto a lot of stuff I would otherwise never have encountered.

Like....Stan Getz's recordings with Eddie Sauter - wow! An album called "Focus" which Santa MUST bring me!!! Just for one track called "Her"...

Violinia

I got the Antonio Carlos Jobim Anthology(Bossa Nova stuff) today and my god the guy who wrote the chord sequences should be shot, they are terrible! I had to rewrite large sections of the chords and even some of the melody line syncopation for at least two pieces that i wanted to play in a gig i did this evening. We played 'Agua De Beder' and 'How Insensitive' and yes in the latter piece i was thinking of the Hal Leonard Corporation!