Jamey Aebersold Jazz, Volume 55: All the Things You Are: Book & CD

These 11 standards represent Kern at his most inventive harmonically, giving jazz musicians genuinely challenging material to work with. The Aebersold approach pairs each tune with a professional trio that plays with taste and restraint, letting students focus on melody and phrasing rather than fighting through poor accompaniment. Including both the recorded versions and lyric sheets means students understand these as songs first, which deepens their interpretive choices.

Sophisticated without being precious. These melodies have an elegant, unhurried quality that comes from Kern's theater background; they breathe naturally and invite you into their harmonic world rather than dazzling you with technique. The rhythm section plays with warmth and swing, creating a comfortable space where you can focus on storytelling.

Intermediate to advanced jazz students ready to engage with real harmonic complexity and interested in understanding the roots of the jazz standard repertoire. Band directors and jazz ensemble teachers can use this to introduce soloists to material that works equally well in a combo or big band context.

• Listen to the recorded trio multiple times before you play along. Notice how Hal Galper voices the changes and where John Goldsby anchors the groove; this teaches you where you have freedom and where the band needs you locked in.
• Start with the melody straight for at least two choruses. Kern's melodies are designed to be beautiful on their own, and rushing into improvisation usually weakens your phrasing.
• Pay attention to the voice leading in the harmony, especially on tunes like 'All the Things You Are' where the changes move by half-step. This is where Kern's sophistication lives, and learning to hear it shapes how you'll comp or solo.
• Sing the lyrics on at least one pass through each tune, even if you're an instrumentalist. The words reveal the emotional shape of the phrase and prevent you from playing rhythmically flat.

Use this as a core text for jazz combos or small ensemble classes; the recorded accompaniment makes it possible for students to practice independently between rehearsals. Assign individual tunes to different students across a semester so that by spring, your ensemble has internalized multiple Kern standards and can program them confidently in concert.

• Reading and executing changes with chromatic movement and unexpected harmonic substitutions
• Phrasing melody with sensitivity to lyrical content and text underlay
• Listening for trio voicings and learning where to sit in the pocket versus where to push
• Improvising over sophisticated harmony in multiple keys and tempos
• Building jazz vocabulary through repeated exposure to standards that shaped the idiom