Jazz Grab Bag: Five Original Intermediate Piano Pieces: Piano Solo

Shulman gives intermediate pianists real jazz repertoire without sacrificing musicality or playability. Five distinct pieces mean students can explore blues changes, ragtime syncopation, waltz swing, and Latin rhythm all in one book, and the collection's humor makes learning feel like discovery rather than drill.

Playful, colorful, and grounded in real jazz tradition. You'll swing through a blues, ragtime your way across two distinct pieces, waltz through jazz time, and take a breezy detour to the Caribbean. The collection has the feel of a pianist's personal notebook, each piece tells a story without overstaying its welcome.

Intermediate pianists (Grade 3) ready to venture beyond classical repertoire and explore jazz idioms with real context and flavor. This collection appeals to students curious about American musical styles and those seeking short recital pieces with personality and performance appeal.

• Listen to recorded versions of each jazz idiom before diving in. Hearing how the blues shuffle lives in 'Thar She Blues' or the lilt of a true jazz waltz in 'Symbols for Three' will inform your touch and phrasing immediately.
• Treat the syncopation as speech, not mathematics. Let the offbeat figures land naturally rather than counting them as subdivision exercises.
• Pay close attention to the Latin rhythms in 'Caribbean Escapade.' The clave pattern underneath will anchor the whole piece and clarify which notes need that characteristic percussive attack.
• Lean into the ragtime articulation in 'Wash Rag' and 'North of Ninth.' Crisp left hand, conversational right hand, think stride piano vocabulary.

Program individual pieces as recital openers or palette cleansers between heavier classical works. A student could perform all five back-to-back for a complete 'jazz grab bag' concert, or select two or three contrasting pieces (blues and waltz, for example) to demonstrate range within a single genre.

• Blues changes and chord substitution
• Ragtime syncopation and stride left-hand patterns
• Jazz waltz rhythm and swing feel
• Latin rhythmic figures and clave
• Articulation and touch variation across jazz styles