Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7358 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Customer Reviews

A classic
A must have for any serious Jazz guitarist, no prisoners taken.

A massive amount of work even at two hours plus a day practising. Not dummied down but if you are serious about learning, even if you can't manage the two hours a day masses of useful stuff.

For me the only problem is there is little tab as he assumes you can read music, I did say no prisoners taken, this is no problem for the chord work and the start of the scale work but becomes more of an issue as you move on. However if you are serious about Jazz you really need to learn to read music.

A Classic Jazz Guitar Book
Everyone who plays or aspires to play jazz should have a copy.

This book seems to have been around forever. I still have the copy I bought in the mid sixties. Written in 1955 in a marketplace starved of guitar books, it stands out as an example of the different appraoch to learning the guitar 50 years ago. It's not been glossed up or made easy for mass consumption (that's me being politically correct and avoiding saying there are books out there that have been dumbed down). I'd guess this is Mickey Baker writing like he taught, complete and un-edited by the publisher. It's very solid stuff, with a lot of work to get through - somewhere halfway through Mickey says you should be practicing for two hours a day. (I certainly remember in 1959 when I started lessons, my teacher thought an hour a day was the minimum.)

It's old, but good. Any book that manages to stay on the shelves for over 50 years has to be a worthwhile learning tool. Divided into two halves, starting with chordwork and then from lesson 26 onward,soloing, it covers most aspects of swing and bebop style playing. It's not so much a system, but how Mickey might have been teaching you if you were a student. Straightaway you'll be into comping with 6ths and minor and major 7ths. It's a method that will definately have you playing and learning stuff you'll be able to apply immediately. And for this price it's a much better buy than spending the same on a few newspapers or a couple of coffees.