- Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar 2 Pdf
- Mickey Baker's Complete Course In Jazz Guitar Pdf
- Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar 1 Pdf
- Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar Pdf
Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar Book 1: This is the book that I used to learn the basic jazz chords when I was younger. It's a book that eve. Read or Download Now Download) Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar: Book 1 (Ashley Publications). PDF Mickey Bakers Complete Course In Jazz Guitar Download ebook full free. Mickey Bakers Complete Course In Jazz Guitar available for download and read online in pdf, epu. Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar: A Modern How-to-Play Jazz and Hot Guitar, Book 1 This book was recommended to me when I was 17 by jazz guitarmeister Curt Warren. Written and first published in the 1950's, Baker's book (still published with the original cheesy cover art, typos, and other mistakes left intact) is an often. 9 9 11 11 11 11 7 13 R R 7 3 5 7 R 7 3 5 9 13 9 13 R 7 13 13 3 R 5 9 7 3 5 7 3 5 5 9 9 911 R 5 3 3 9 5 7 9 7 5 9 5 5 5 Dom9 Dom7(b9)(#5) min7 Sus6/9 Dom11 Maj6 Dom.
Read any good books lately?New! The Lowdown on Fakebooks
Most of the jazz musicians I know have one or more fakebooks at their disposal, for learning tunes at home, in rehearsals, or even on the bandstand. There are a lot of them out there, some better than others, so I'd like to list some of the ones I use regularly.
The Chuck Sher New Real Books
These books are at the top of my list because they are the most accurate and pay royalties to the composers. Sometimes the charts are a bit too detailed to sight read in a dark club, and there are some pop tunes included in some of the volumes that really shouldn't have been included, but overall they're excellent books. If you have to pick one start with The New Real Book, Volume 1, which contains a lot of tunes jazz musicians play.
If you are looking for an alternative to the Chuck Sher books the Warner Brothers Just Jazz Real Book is very good. The tunes are very well-known standards and the music is legible with good changes.
A great resource for locating which book(s) a particular tune can be found is The Fake Book Index over at http://www.seventhstring.com/, who also make the terrific program Transcribe!
Classic instructional books on jazz improv and jazz guitar
Sometimes nothing but a book will do (i.e, not an 'e-book.') Below I've listed and annotated some of the ones that I first started with back in the mid 1970s, which I believe have stood the test of time. In addition, there is a review of a newer book that has set the bar for jazz texts, Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book.
- Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar: A Modern How-to-Play Jazz and Hot Guitar, Book 1
This book was recommended to me when I was 17 by jazz guitarmeister Curt Warren. Written and first published in the 1950's, Baker's book (still published with the original cheesy cover art, typos, and other mistakes left intact) is an often hilarious window into a bygone era. With all its flaws it's still an extremely useful instruction book for guitarists who are newbies to jazz. It's divided into two sections, chords and soloing. The chords are all written as box diagrams (requiring no music reading ability), and the subsequent exercises teach you solid musical examples using the chords you've learned. If you work your way through the first section more or less as Baker instructs you'll know 90% of the basic 'jazz guitar chords' that you'll need to play jazz/blues changes, standards, bop tunes, and bossa novas. The section on single note soloing is pretty basic, but it does teach you some simple jump blues lines and a few concepts about soloing on changes.
- Improvising Jazz (A Fireside book) by Jerry Coker
Jerry Coker started his career as a saxophonist, apprenticed in big bands such as those of Woody Herman and Stan Kenton, and later garnered fame for his extensive contributions to jazz education. Improvising Jazz was his first book, written in 1962. A thin paperback, its humble appearance belies the wealth of information contained between the covers. Coker discusses topics such as chord/scale relationships, jazz harmony, developing your ears, melody construction, analyzing tunes by their key centers and chord root motion, and how to swing. My mom bought me a copy when I graduated high school, and a better gift I can't imagine. Well, maybe a Shelby Cobra. Coker also co-wrote:
- Patterns for Jazz: Treble Clef
Unlike its svelte cousin discussed above, Patterns for Jazz: Treble Clef is a full sized text meant for the music stand. My aged copy is spiral bound; unfortunately recent editions are bound with cardboard and glue, which makes the book harder to keep open. While this book contains ample theoretical explanation of keys, modes, and so forth, it is intended to be practiced from. The focus of it is to develop the jazz musician's technique and vocabulary through extensive study of scales, patterns, and lines, exercised through all twelve keys. As with many books of this nature, Patterns for Jazz: Treble Clef is one of those resources that a person would have a difficult time studying to completion in one lifetime. In the interest of fairness, I should mention that quite a few musicians believe that studying and practicing patterns as outlined in this book is a waste of time - that such practice is anti-musical. Coker and other jazz educators of his generation were probably a bit overzealous in presenting these books, but I believe that pattern study can be not only practical but enlightening. All music makes use of patterns, and in a sense it's ridiculous to define some patterns as good and others bad. As with most things in life, pattern study is perhaps best done in moderation.
- Joe Pass Guitar Style
Joe Pass was one of my main influences on guitar. When I was nineteen I had the pleasure of meeting and studying with Joe at a seminar in Tampa, FL, and in addition to his book I had just about every record he had put out at that time. The Joe Pass Guitar Style book was carefully written by Joe and Bill Thrasher. Like Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar: A Modern How-to-Play Jazz and Hot Guitar, Book 1, Joe's is divided into two sections: harmony (chords) and melody (soloing). Unlike the Baker book, Joe's book uses only standard notation for the examples, so you have to be able to read music to get the most out of it. The terms and theories are clear and simple - a refreshing workingman's approach to the subject. The section on harmony is worth the price alone, and the melodic etudes in the second part are examples nonpareil on how to solo over chord changes.
- Jamey Aebersold play-along series Along with his contemporaries Jerry Coker and David Baker, Jamey Aebersold is one of the founding fathers of modern jazz education. His unique contribution was to take the idea of Music Minus One and apply it to learning jazz fundamentals. It all started about 40 years ago with an album and book set entitled How to Play Jazz & Improvise. Volume 1 These albums (now CDs, of course) provide rhythm tracks (usually piano, bass, and drums) and the accompanying books have the melodies and chord progressions written out in treble and bass clefs and transposed for Bb and Eb instruments, suggested scales, and other tips on how to improvise. My first one was Vol. 3, The II/V7/I Progression: A New Approach To Jazz Improvisation (I believed after playing for only two years that I needed the 'intermediate' level). To date Mr. Aebersold has produced 118 of these play-along recordings, including volumes devoted to songs by jazz composers such as Horace Silver (three separate volumes, Vol. 17, Vol. 18, and Vol. 86), Herbie Hancock John Coltrane (two volumes, Vol. 27 and Vol. 28), and Wes Montgomery, and many volumes of tunes that are classic jazz standards. Many of the volumes are simply exercises, including the volumes 1 and 3 discussed above.
Another terrific 'play-along' tool is Band in a Box 2009 Pro. For those of you unfamiliar with this little gem, it is a computer program which auto-generates accompaniment backgrounds for practicing soloing. All you do is type in chord symbols (in ASCII text), hit the play button and off you go. You'll also need a sound card on your computer and some speakers for audio. There are several clear advantages to Band-in-a-Box - namely, you can play your tunes in any key, at any tempo, with any of a copious number of rhythmic feels. If you aren't happy with a particular chord, you can change it. The files take up almost no room on your hard disk, so you can easily store hundreds or even thousands of tunes.
The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine
I need more books on jazz theory and methods like I need a hole in the head, so I resisted buying this book for a long time. Now that I own it, I can honestly say that it's the best single resource of its type I've found on the market today. During the last twenty-five years of teaching, I've mostly relied on explaining things my own way, because there was no single book that pulled all the aspects of theory and common practice into one place. Mark Levine has written just such a book. I studied all the chapters to see what was included and how it was explained, and in most every case it either matched my opinions exactly or explained things even more clearly than I could.
Transcriptions
One thing that almost every jazz musician does is study the improvising of other great jazz musicians, and more often than not this is done via transcriptions. Strictly speaking transcription is writing music down in some form of notation, say standard treble and bass clefs or guitar tab, but it's sometimes done by learning a solo with your instrument (Joey Goldstein calls this 'lifting' rather than transcribing) or by singing it. It's best to do this yourself for the ear training, but since I have a bunch of solos already written out I thought I'd share them with you. More of these will follow. If you're so inclined read the caveats.
I've started with some Charlie Christian solos on account of he was the man.
- Charlie Christian's solo on Memories of You
- Charlie Christian's solo on Poor Butterfly
- Charlie Christian's solo on Rose Room
- Charlie Christian's solo on All Star Strut (alt. take)
- Charlie Christian's solo on Gone With What Wind
- Charlie Christian's solo on Grand Slam
- Charlie Christian's solo on As Long as I Live
- Charlie Christian's solo on Benny's Bugle
- Charlie Christian's solo on Six Appeal
- Charlie Christian's solo on Honeysuckle Rose
- Charlie Christian's solo on Seven Come Eleven
- Charlie Christian's solo on Wholly Cats
This would be a good time to mention a really helpful tool called Transcribe!, put out by the good folks at http://www.seventhstring.com/. Transcribe! allows you to manipulate sound files (mp3s, etc) in various ways that help in transcribing - slowing them down, changing the pitch, creating and storing loop points, and so on. Their excellent web site has loads of free music tools and advice for transcribing, as well as the The Fake Book Index mentioned above.
Quintessential jazz recordings
Every musician I knows has an extensive library of jazz records (even the ones who don't play jazz). Below are some recommendations, particularly suited for those of you new to the genre. This will be a work in progress, not only because of the staggering number of jazz records that already exist, but great new recordings come out all the time.
Miles Davis, trumpeter, composer, bandleader. One of the most important jazz musicians in the music's history. Almost any of his records can be considered classics, but here is a short list.
John Coltrane, tenor and soprano saxophonist. Coltrane or 'Trane as he was sometimes known remains one of the most important and influential musicians in jazz. He was a sideman for Miles Davis during the 1950s on two separate occasions, and began his solo recording career during this time. His style was very intense, and with his classic quartet with McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Jimmy Garrison they would sometimes play one song for an entire hour or more! Below is a sampling of his prodigious recorded with.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet. Pianist/composer/bandleader Dave Brubeck is a controversial figure, often dissed by critics and some jazz musicians for his popularity and sometimes heavy handed approach to the piano. Others have pointed out that he was not the first musician to use odd time signatures in jazz, which is true. But the fact is, he was a true jazz pioneer who managed to spread high level, original instrumental music to a wide new audience during a time when jazz was being overshadowed by rock and roll and R&B. His most famous quartet included drummer Joe Morello, bassist Joe Benjamin, and the stunning alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, who wrote the group's signature tune, Take 5. Two of their most recognized and creative albums are:
- Time Out -50th Anniversary (2 CD/1 DVD Legacy Edition) note: I don't have this edition, but I'd sure like to get it!
Wayne Shorter, tenor and soprano saxophonist, composer. A sideman with both Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and Miles Davis's Quintet, Wayne Shorter probably did more than anyone else to change the sound of jazz composition during the 1960s, one of music's most turbulent and fertile periods. His compositions sound deceptively simple and lyrical, yet with underlying depth and sophistication. The albums below represent some of his best work.
Clay's practice tips series
A couple of years ago I ran a series of weekly e-mail tips that I sent to a group of people who signed up to receive them. Although time constraints eventually caused me to discontinue the series I enjoyed writing them, and I think the advice holds up. See for yourself.
The full title is: “Mickey Baker’s Complete Course in Jazz Guitar: A Modern Method in How-To-Play Jazz and Hot Guitar.” Wow, titles were long back in the good old days.
How about some Hot Guitar daddy-o ?
This book was published in 1955. The fact that it is still in print, and sells well more than 60 years later, is a testament to its value as a learning resource. I bought it a while back and have worked on it off and on since then. Recently I’ve been getting more serious about it and finally completed the first half.
I first heard about this book in a Robben Ford video. He mentioned that he learned about Jazz chords from the Mickey Baker book. Later I found out that many other well known guitarists had used this book.
The book is only 64 pages long and cost me $5.89 in August of 2016. Yet, there’s enough material in it to keep you busy for a year or two, maybe more, especially if you do everything that Mickey Baker tells you to do. He assigns you a lot of homework. Which, I shamefully admit, I did not always do. OK, I’ll come clean. I hardly ever did any of the extra things he said to do. But I did work through and practice all the exercises in the first half of the book – the part that focuses on chords and progressions. I just got started on the second half (for about the 13th time).
52 lessons divided into 2 sections
The first section focuses on chords and progressions. Mickey Baker uses the traditional chord grid diagrams everyone is familiar with. Unlike some method books where you have to go through a lot of preliminaries, Mickey Baker has you putting these chords to use in practical progressions in lesson 2. This is not some worthless chord encyclopedia where you’re given 3,000 chord shapes without any context.
You will almost immediately hear things that sound hauntingly familiar as you work through the chord progressions. That’s because they are the same chord progressions used in thousands of songs. If you’ve ever wondered how good guitarists make the chords in a progression flow seamless one into the other (voice leading) you’ll get some ideas here.
The second section focuses on single note playing. It is packed with stuff like picking exercises, scales, arpeggios (Baker calls them scale runs), melodic phrases (licks), complete solos, how to embellish a melody, and how to construct a solo from the melody. Just like in the chord section he has you putting these things to practical use by the 3rd lesson. Much of it is devoted to Jazz Blues.
It kind of strikes me funny that many of his Blues lines don’t sound very bluesy, yet the lines to be played over variations of “rhythm changes” are often very bluesy. The latter are good examples on how the Blues can be incorporated into non-Blues tunes. As Frank Vignola says, “Without Blues there is no Jazz.” Also, there are many, many tasty phrases along with some very useful patterns and concepts.
Now for the bad news. Part 2 is written in standard notation. No tab! I know this is going to scare away some people. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is why you rarely hear any discussion of the 2nd half of this book on the forums. However, if you’re smart you’ll use this as an opportunity to finally learn to read standard notation.
Come on, you’ve been meaning to learn to read standard notation for years now. Right? You’ve been planning to do it just as soon as you learn all the notes on the fret board. Seriously, even if you never get into the second half of the book the first half is well worth the price of admission.
Some criticisms of Mickey Baker’s book
Here is a list of the main criticisms I’ve encountered on the Internet and my response them.
#1. It’s Dated
Recently someone on a Jazz guitar forum said something like, I don’t understand why anybody would want to use the Mickey Baker book in 2019. The obvious implication is that the book is dated and useless today.
What? Are these basic chords and progressions no longer used today? What about the single note exercises, arpeggios, licks, and solos in part two? Are they no longer valid?
I have to concede a bit on this one. There are many things in this book that do sound dated and even downright hokey today. But, with a little thought and effort, you’ll be able to sort this out. The underlying concepts are what are important. To quote Bruce Lee, “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own.”
I think you’ll find many more things that are useful than are not. Let your ears be your guide.
#2. Crazy Chord Names
This is a valid criticism. Mickey Baker named some chords in ways that will leave you scratching your head. The prime example is his infamous D13b5b9 that doesn’t contain a D note. Anybody looking at this chord today would simply call it an Ab7#9 (the tritone substitution of D7 with the #9 on top ). You’ll encounter a few other examples of Baker giving rootless chords non-intuitive names — just be on the lookout for them. He also consistently (and mistakenly) calls a major 6/9 chord a major 9 which can be pretty confusing for someone who’s just starting to learn this stuff..
So, why would he do that? It could be that he learned those chords with those names. It could also be that he named some chords according to their function; not so much according to the notes they contain. But, that’s not always the case either. Those minor 7th to minor 6th moves of his are clearly ii > V cadences. Learning a little basic music theory will help you sort that stuff out (if you are the curious type).
#3. Too Many Big Chords
Yes, Mickey Baker did have a penchant for big chord voicings. Apparently, they were much more popular in the past than they are today in Jazz. However, they certainly can still be used. (Check out Kenny Burrell. He tastefully uses big, lush chords all the time. Tastefully is the key word here.) You just have to be judicious in their use so you don’t get in the way of a soloist or clash with the melody or another chordal instrument like a piano.
This is one of the things I think people are referring to when they criticize the book as being dated. However, I see this as a non-issue. If you don’t want to play a 5-note chord then don’t play all the notes. Any 5 or 6 note chord can be reduced to a 3 note shell voicing. It’s an easy fix. Just because something is written a particular way in a book doesn’t mean you have to do it that way.
Currently I’m on a finger style kick and rarely play chords with more than 4 notes. (I can’t get comfortable plucking with my pinky). However, there are occasions when a big, lush chord is called for. Mickey Baker’s D13b5b9 resolving to a Gmaj7 with the following fingerings is just too beautiful to ignore: |4 6 x 5 7 7| to |3 5 x 4 7 7| That Gmaj7 is quite a stretch and, with my small hands, took me a lot of practice. I still can’t play it any lower than G and probably never will.
#4. Not Enough Explanation
There is very little theoretical explanation of anything in this book. That should certainly please the anti-music theory crowd; and motivate those interested in music theory to put on their thinking caps. See, there’s something for everyone.
Someone on a Jazz guitar forum described it as “total immersion with little explanation.” I agree. Baker uses the just-do-what-I-tell-you-and-don’t-worry-about-why teaching method. The objective is for you, the student, to get the chord shapes, progressions, and lines under your fingers. And, more importantly, to get the sound of these progressions and lines into your ears and put them to practical use ASAP. You can learn why later, but right now just do what you’re told.
I think this is the way many of the old-timers learned back in the day. They learned by listening, watching, and copying what they heard and saw. They got tips from the more experienced musicians they played with. Then they took all this information and explored, experimented, and discovered things on their own. I know I could certainly benefit from more exploration, experimentation, and self-discovery instead of always depending on tabs.
#4. He expects you to do too much on your own
I guess some people just need a lot of adult supervision. This is not a passive book where you just play what he shows you as a series of exercises. He expects you to put this material to practical use right now. Mickey Baker doesn’t spoon feed you.
Half way through part one he tells you to start applying his chord substitutions to actual songs on your own. In part two he gives you a couple of bars of a solo and has you fill in the next couple of bars with your own ideas. Then he gives you a couple of more bars and you fill in again.
In other words he forces you to think, work, and apply what you are learning – not when you finish the book, but right now as your working through it. If this was the only guitar method book you owned and you put forth the effort to do everything he tells you to do I’m convinced you would become a very accomplished guitarist.
This is where many of us fail. We skip over the hard stuff. The stuff where we’re supposed to put in the hard, monotonous work. We get distracted by the shiny object over there thinking that the secret to becoming a good guitarist is in that other book or video course.
#5. Not enough chords are presented
Only a petty, pedantic, pinhead would say something like this. Mickey Baker gives you 5 major 7th shapes, 13 dominant 7th shapes (including altered 7ths), 2 to 4 different shapes for major 6th, minor 6th, minor 7th, minor 11th, minor 9th, and diminished 7th. There are 33 chords in total and, of course, several can function as more than one chord. For example, the Gmaj6 (3 x 2 4 3 x x) is also a 1st inversion Emin7 and a rootless Cmaj9 with the 5th in the bass.
Yeah, there are a few very common shapes he left out, but that’s still a lot of chords especially if they are new to you. As Joe Pass pointed out, there are only 3 chord types — major, minor, and dominant. All chords function as one of those primary types. You can play any Jazz standard in existence with the 33 chords in this book.
#6. Mickey Baker didn’t write this book
Some people say that Mickey Baker did nothing more than publish the lessons he took with a man by the name of Rector Bailey. This could be completely true, partially true, or not true at all. Who knows for sure? None of the parties involved are alive today to defend their positions.
As far as I’m concerned this is another non-issue. Is the value of this book any less because there is some doubt as to who actually wrote the material? Would we have this guitar method available to us today if Baker didn’t put it together and have it published? Is anybody’s guitar course 100% original? I doubt it on all these questions.
#7. The book is poorly edited
This is 100% true and undeniable. I don’t think it was edited at all. I’m not just talking about typos. I’m talking about things like using the word course instead of chorus several times; calling a major 6/9 chord a major 9th consistently; saying the minor V chord is the relative minor. Things that a good music book editor should have caught.
This is not a criticism of Mickey Baker. It’s a criticism of the publisher. Somewhere in cyber space there is an addendum that somebody put together correcting all the mistakes and typos. I can’t find it at the moment. If you find it please post a link in the comments.
Wrap up
Is this book the be-all-end-all resource for learning Jazz guitar? No, of course not. No book or video course is. However, YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE, and this is as good a place to start as any.
I have more guitar instruction books, Truefire courses, DVDs, and other learning resources downloaded from the Internet than I could get through in 10 lifetimes. However, I keep going back to the Mickey Baker book. Hardly a day goes by where I’ll be watching some YouTube video and think, “Wait a minute – Mickey Baker covered that.”
Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar 2 Pdf
Which Mickey Baker Book should I get?
Mickey Baker only published 2 books in the U.S., the book reviewed here and a volume 2 in 1959. The 3rd book you might run across is a compilation of these 2. I do not have the compilation or the 2nd volume. I’ve heard that the compilation book is poorly laid out and has even more typos than the 1st book. Regarding book 2: I have never heard any notable guitarist reference or recommend it, but I have heard guitarists I respect say that it’s not worth getting.
I recommend getting the one with the yellow and black cover that says “Book 1” on the cover.
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UPDATE: Someone was kind enough to send me a link to the errata sheet that guitarist/teacher Frank Mele put together. This is a good resource and took a lot of time and effort to put together. Anybody working through the Mickey Baker Book will definitely find this useful. Errata and Comments PDF
Mickey Baker's Complete Course In Jazz Guitar Pdf
Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar 1 Pdf
If you want to get started learning Jazz guitar and are overwhelmed by all the conflicting information floating around the Internet then check out this article. You’ll get some good tips on how to get started. It’s not as difficult as many will have you believe.
Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar Pdf
Please leave a comment below especially if you have this book. I’d like to hear your opinion even if you disagree with me.