Arrangement & Composition de la Musique de Jazz: Book & CD

This book treats jazz arranging as a learnable craft grounded in the decisions of masters, not as intuition or mystery. The inclusion of concert-key scores paired with CD recordings lets you hear exactly how the techniques work in practice, making the gap between analysis and sound remarkably small.

Opening this book feels like sitting in a master class where the instructor pauses a Miles Davis recording to show you exactly why the trumpet line lands the way it does. The bilingual presentation (English and French) and the grounding in specific historical voices give the whole approach a scholarly rigor that never loses sight of the joy of discovery.

This is essential for jazz composition and arranging students, band directors building jazz ensemble curricula, and any musician serious about understanding how the great jazz writers constructed their sounds. It also serves educators who want to ground their teaching in documented examples rather than generic theory.

• Work through the harmony examples on your instrument before diving into the complete scores. Playing the voicings themselves builds intuition faster than reading about them.
• Use the CD recordings to listen for how the same melodic idea transforms across different harmonic approaches. Train your ear to notice the character shift that accompanies each new harmonization.
• Study the six complete scores in concert key by following them against the recordings multiple times. Each pass will reveal different layers of the arranging choices at work.
• Pay special attention to how the rhythm section chapters connect to the horn writing sections. Jazz arrangement is always a conversation between the horns and the rhythm instruments.

Use this as the core text for a dedicated jazz arranging course, or assign chapters strategically throughout a jazz ensemble curriculum to deepen players' understanding of what they're performing. The form and development chapter is particularly valuable for directors building longer-form compositions and extended works into concert programs.

• Melody harmonization using multiple approaches (shell voicings, block chords, linear substitutions)
• Writing for horn sections in pairs, trios, quartets, and quintets with voice independence
• Rhythm section writing and comping patterns specific to jazz idiom
• Analysis of form in extended jazz compositions and development techniques
• Transcription and stylistic analysis from recordings of Ellington, Evans, Strayhorn, Nelson, and Fischer
• Score reading in concert key and transposition understanding