Die Evolution des Solo Jazz Pianos Teil 1-2: Piano DVD

Dobbins solves a fundamental teaching problem: how do you help students grasp the distinctive voice of each pianist when the repertoire itself varies so widely? By composing a single theme and reinterpreting it through 24 different stylistic lenses, he makes the invisible visible. Students hear exactly what Tatum's harmonic density sounds like, what Monk's orthogonal approach feels like, and how Evans transforms the same harmonic foundation. This is analytical learning through listening, not lecture.

Intimate and revelatory. You're sitting in a masterclass where 24 pianists each take the same musical sentence and speak it in their own accent, with their own syntax and emphasis. The effect accumulates: by the time you've heard a dozen interpretations, you begin to hear not just differences but the logic behind them, the priorities that shape each musician's touch.

Jazz pianists at the intermediate level and beyond who are ready to move beyond learning individual tunes and want to understand how musical personality develops. It's equally valuable for jazz educators, composers, and theory teachers seeking a resource that demonstrates stylistic evolution concretely. Music students in any discipline benefit from hearing how constraint (a single harmonic framework) reveals artistic individuality.

• Isolate two pianists whose work you find most distant from each other (Joplin and Corea, for example) and listen to both interpretations of the theme back-to-back multiple times before diving into the full DVD.
• Play along with the theme yourself after studying one pianist's approach, testing whether you can internalize and voice their stylistic choices well enough to improvise in their manner.
• Use the traditional styles section (Part 1) as historical scaffolding before exploring the modern styles (Part 2); the lineage becomes audibly clear when you hear Ellington's influence echo through Evans and Beirach.

Integrate this into jazz ensemble rehearsals as a listening assignment that contextualizes repertoire your group is learning; if your band is studying a Monk chart, the DVD gives students direct access to Monk's solo voice and allows them to recognize his imprint on the ensemble arrangement. Use it in music history courses, jazz pedagogy workshops, or as part of a unit on composers and arrangers who worked across styles.

• Recognizing distinctive pianistic voices and their harmonic priorities (voicing, chord substitution, reharmonization)
• Understanding how stylistic coherence emerges from consistent musical choices rather than conscious originality-seeking
• Tracing stylistic lineage and influence across jazz history from ragtime through contemporary fusion
• Developing listening skills that distinguish subtle variations in touch, rhythm, dynamics, and approach within a fixed harmonic structure