Advanced Harmonic Concepts: Book & CD

This book cuts through the traditional functional harmony framework that can feel limiting when students encounter contemporary jazz repertoire. By grounding harmonic movement in melodic shape rather than chord-scale relationships, Naus gives players a conceptual tool that opens up how they hear and respond to the music they're actually learning.

The harmonic language here feels spacious and inquiry-driven rather than prescriptive. You encounter progressions that surprise you, that ask "why did the composer choose this?" instead of defaulting to what voice-leading conventions would suggest.

This is essential material for intermediate to advanced jazz students who have solid foundational harmony knowledge and are ready to understand how contemporary composers think beyond traditional progressions. Serious jazz educators will find it invaluable for reshaping how they teach harmonic analysis and improvisation to musicians who want to engage deeply with modern repertoire.

• Listen actively to the included recordings before working through the written concepts. Hearing how these harmonic ideas unfold in context clarifies what the text is describing.
• Work backward from the melody when analyzing examples. Trace how each progression emerges from the melodic line rather than forcing the melody over predetermined changes.
• Sing the melodic lines aloud while studying the harmonic movement. This internalization helps bridge what you understand intellectually and what your ear recognizes.

Build this into your jazz theory curriculum as a bridge between functional harmony and improvisation. Students working on transcriptions or original compositions will gain fresh tools for understanding the decisions they encounter in real charts.

• Analyzing harmonic progressions derived from melodic contour rather than functional relationships
• Recognizing non-functional harmonic movement in contemporary jazz styles
• Understanding how melody generates harmony in modern jazz composition
• Applying harmonic concepts to improvisation over non-traditional progressions
• Transcribing and studying harmonic approaches used by contemporary jazz composers