Bebop Licks for Piano: A Dictionary of Melodic Ide

One of my best jazz books
If you play the lines in the book and in all twelve keys, you will start learning jazz language the way a baby learns to speak. On the surfact it may look like some random licks, but they’re carefully designed to get your ear hearning unusual placements of chromatics. I take a lick, work on it in all twelve keys and have noticed when improvising how those elements work themselves in my playing. A lot of thought went into this book. There’s enough in this book I can work on the rest of my life.

Well written and organized
The material is well organized over 2-5-1’s starting on 3,5,7,& 9. John Valerio’s book Bebop Jazz Piano would begood to go with it, since there are no applied examples used in pieces.

Líneas melódicas sencillas de complejidad variable, de nivel básico a un poco menos básico.Apoyo otros comentarios que dicen que no ayuda a “ubicarse” realmente en las frases armónicas del Jazz. Expone secuencias armónicas basadas en sus nombres, no en su desplegue en notas ni en su semántica real para cada mini composición.

This is a good book. Nearly all the lines exhibit the bebop trademarks that are difficult to identify when listening to fast recordings. The attentive student should come away from using this book, even after just half an hour, with a much greater understanding of how pianists like Bill Evans are forming their melodic ideas. It is nice to be given some extended phrases, moving these lines away from just being short and sharp licks that are so frustrating for the intermediate pianist who hankers after longer lines. What the book does well, is to demonstrate tension and release. For those unfamiliar with harmony, it would help greatly to print of a chord chart to show you where in the chords the line is resolving to, as the book does not elucidate this. It comes with a CD, and all the tracks are played at a manageable tempo that most people who considered buying this book should easily follow on the page. However, the recordings are played, in my humble opinion, pretty terribly. The notes are all there, but the player seems to stagger through each line, often veering away from his metronome. My conclusion is that this book will help, but only when combined with hard work at ear training and listening to great bebop pianists. Whilst I may not be able to play what they play, I endeavour, with everything I practice, to emulate the feel that pianists such as Oscar Peterson have. Take what you need from this book and combine it with what you hear. There is no substitute for listening and transcribing, but this book will give you a leg up! Have fun!