Jazz Piano and Harmony: Keyboard/Piano Book & CD

This book reads like a working pianist's notebook, organized around problems you actually encounter when you sit down to play jazz: how to make modes sound intentional, how to voice chords so your left hand doesn't fight your right, how to hear what an altered dominant really does. The CD performances ground the theory in sound, so you're not imagining what a voicing should feel like; you're hearing it directly and then replicating it at your own instrument.

Advanced jazz piano students ready to move beyond basic chord progressions into the harmonic language that enables real improvisation and sophisticated comp work. Educators teaching jazz theory can use this systematically with individual students or in a keyboard classroom where mixed levels benefit from clear, structured explanation. Players on other instruments will find the theoretical frameworks and examples directly applicable to their own melodic and harmonic choices.

• Work through the chord scale exercises slowly, playing each one with the accompanying CD track until the sounds become muscle memory rather than intellectual effort.
• When studying the left hand voicings for blues progressions, record yourself playing the voicings over a static bass note, then gradually add walking bass patterns to deepen your command.
• Focus on one pentatonic position at a time before moving to inversions; hearing how each position sits over the chord it's paired with prevents the positions from blurring together.
• Use the diminished patterns as daily warm-ups, cycling through them in all keys to internalize the symmetrical relationships that make diminished chords both predictable and useful in reharmonization.

Use this as a semester-long or year-long resource for individual jazz piano study, working through one chapter every few weeks while maintaining parallel repertoire and improvisation work. In a classroom setting, select chapters that address current performance needs: blues voicings before a blues gig, modal harmony before playing Herbie Hancock, upper structures before tackling complex reharmonization projects. Advanced jazz combos can reference specific sections when arranging or rehearing tunes that demand more sophisticated voicing choices.

• Modal theory and application over chord progressions
• Chord scale relationships and selecting scales for specific chords
• Left hand voicing patterns for blues and jazz standards
• Pentatonic scale positions and altered pentatonic use
• Upper structure triad voicings
• Dominant chord substitution and voice leading
• Diminished chord patterns and substitution options
• Reharmonization through modal interchange and modulation
• Reading and executing voicings from lead sheets