Learn Piano Jazz with Berklee Books
5 Books to learn jazz on your own.
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Berklee College of Music es una de las escuelas de música más prestigiosas del mundo, muchos sueñan con poder estudiar allí y conocer estudiantes de todas partes del mundo. El único inconveniente para muchos es el valor que tiene estudiar en esta institución, pero para nuestra fortuna además de tener un buen programa de becas, Berklee tiene una variedad de libros de música en diferentes áreas escritos de forma metódica para el uso y aprendizaje individual.
Within the books written for piano you can find everything, from scores, adaptations and arrangements to learning methods for different musical genres. With my students we use different books and piano methods to learn how to play jazz. In this blog I present to you the Berklee books that we use the most with students interested in learning to play Jazz on the Piano.
Berklee Jazz Piano by Ray Santisi.
This book is the central pillar and the general we base on to study the other Berklee books. The author of this one here, not only shared the stage with jazz legends such as Charlie Parker and Stan Getz, but was also was a mentor to great jazz performers of our time such as Keith Jarrett and Diana Krall, his experience as a pianist, arranger, composer and teacher gave the book a progressive structure with fairly fluid activities and exercises included, as well as being based around the Berklee Piano Jazz program.
The book has 18 chapters, all with a theoretical section and a practical section, it begins explaining the type of chords, the bass line in the left hand and the ways to harmonize a melody, then comes a section on the rhythm and the syncopation. Finally, just before starting with the improvisation chapter (chapter 13), he goes deeper into chords to explain the different types of voicings and explains how the walking bass works as well as the treatment of the upper structures in the chords. In this part of the book it is well worth introducing Jazz Piano Comping: Harmonies, Voicings and Grooves to enrich the chapters on voicing and rhythm, but we will talk about it in point 4.
The chapters that follow bring us closer to pentatonic scales and their relationship to chords. I usually pause in this chapter with my students so I can combine it with the book Chord-Scale Improvisation for Keyboard: A Linear Approach to Improvisation which we'll also talk about later. The book ends by talking about melody and modal harmony, contrapuntal jazz, and expanding a bit on the topic of harmonization.
Although this book includes annexes with scores for practicing the exercises proposed in it, I recommend, instead, applying them to the different standards of the Real Book and even starting to experiment with improvisation from the very beginning and not waiting until chapter 13 where this topic is covered, doing it this way will prepare you faster to play in jam sessions or jazz bands, since you will be much more familiar with the usual repertoire for jazz.
2. Berklee Jazz Keyboard Harmony - Using Upper-Structure Harmonies by Suzanna Sifter.
Suzanna Sifter is a pianist, composer and teacher with more than 30 years of experience teaching at Berklee, this led her to the publication of this great book that has helped hundreds of students understand elements of jazz from its sonority, but even better, all applied to the piano.
This book is quite direct and concrete, its chapters are divided into the types of chords and for each one the author explains the superior harmonic structures that offer a more modern sound when playing jazz on the piano. It also offers a practical view of some scales and their relationship with the chords that enrich our jazz language. In the end the book condenses everything in the most used harmonic progression in jazz II - V - I.
Studying with this book you will achieve a more modern sound when playing jazz, in addition to serving as a perfect extension and deepening for the chapter on the same topic in the previous book, it is very worth combining both texts at this point.
3. Chord-Scale Improvisation for Keyboard: A Linear Approach to Improvisation by Ross Ramsay.
Like the previous book, this is an excellent tool to complement Ray Santisi's book on the Improvisation chapter. Ross Ramsay gives a very practical view of the application of theory between scales and chords, allowing improvisations to be more fluid without being complex. Ross has great experience not only in teaching the piano but also in working with different electric pianos and this is reflected in the book.
This book is all about the scales and their practical use and in jazz context, although the information in this book is not much, it actually is very concrete and crucial. I usually use the exercises in this book with my students as part of the warm-up complementing the Hanon exercises. I think it can work as a reference book in some cases, but it can be used more as an accompaniment to Ray Santisi's book, which, as I said at the beginning, is the central pillar with which you can learn jazz.
4. Jazz Piano Comping: Harmonies, Voicings, and Grooves by Suzanne Davis.
This book is one of my favorites, not only as a pianist but also as a composer, in combination with the book of Ray Santisi and Ross Ramsay, you will have an entire piano course in your hands, although I always recommend having a teacher to help you to navigate the books in the best way, these three books complement each other so well that you may not need a teacher after all.
Suzanne Davis is a pianist and composer with a lot of experience in teaching piano, in this book she explains and shows us the function that pianists have as accompanists within an ensemble and as accompanists of a soloist, it complements very well the chapter of Voice Leading of the first book of this blog, crucial topic to give color and interest to the comping roll of the pianist.
Where this book really adds to the others is in its notes on rhythm or “Groove”. Remember that music only exists in time and how we organize it is what we call rhythm, this book at that point is quite enlightening. With these 4 Berklee books you will be able to build a solid foundation in Piano Jazz and you can more calmly and fluently explore other rhythms that also use part of the language of jazz.
5. Latin Jazz Piano Improvisation: Clave, Comping, and Soloing by Rebecca Cline.
The literature and books about Latin jazz is quite extensive, but one of the outstanding books is that of Rebecca Cline. Her extensive experience as a researcher and performer, as well as having the opportunity to play with the forerunners of Latin jazz in Boston, make her the most appropriate to write on this topic.
Although many come to Latin jazz after having gone through jazz, it is also possible to enter the world of jazz through Latin jazz, as was my case. Latin jazz offers you firm foundations in rhythm that will later help you and facilitate your learning of jazz, which is why with some of my students we use this book in parallel to Ray Santisi's, applying Rebecca's rhythmic foundations to Ray's harmony.
This book is perhaps too specific and leaves it up to the reader to continue investigating and practicing all the topics covered there. Rebecca, in the first two parts of the book, involves us in the world of the Clave and explains its role and importance in Afro-Cuban music and Latin jazz. Something unique in this book is the correlation between the phrasing when improvising and its relationship with the Clave: “3-2 or 2-3”.
The third part of this book is directly related to the Voice Leading of the previous books but in the context of Latin jazz. The use of octaves is common in this style, but the way they are used can vary depending on the chord and, in general, on the harmony. In this book, the author gives us many examples of the function of the octaves depending on the harmonic context.
Since the publication of this book until today, the way in which the piano accompanies has evolved, it is much more melodic, active and polyphonic than before, however this book is an excellent introduction to that type of comping, which although it does not deal with it directly, it does excel in the way it explains the relationship between piano voicing, Clave, and rhythm section.
6. My Personal Opinion.
The number of books and methods that exist to learn to play jazz on the piano is huge and therefore it is difficult to choose just one and stick to it for months, which is why in this blog I condense the books that, in my personal opinion, and experience seamlessly complement each other, that's because they're all covered under the roof of the prestigious Berklee College of Music.
As I mentioned during the blog, several of these books are a representation of the Berklee Jazz Piano Program, these programs last around 4 years, that means for us that learning the content of all these books will not be in a few months, it will take time and patience, it is best to divide it into parts and take the necessary time in each chapter to put into practice all the theory that they cover.
Real Book 1, 2 and 3, as well as the Latin Real Book, are tools that will help you put into practice each of the topics covered in all these books. I hope that with this blog you have been able to get a better idea of what these Berklee books can bring to you in your piano jazz journey. If you are interested in taking online piano lessons, do not hesitate to contact me, I will gladly answer your questions. Do not forget to subscribe to the newsletter or share with your contacts if you think this information may be useful to them.
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