The Evolution of Solo Jazz Piano: Piano DVD

Dobbins has solved a genuine teaching challenge: how to help students understand that jazz individuality emerges not from rejection of tradition, but from selective emphasis within it. By composing a single theme and arranging it through the lens of 24 masters, he makes the invisible visible. Students hear what Tatum did differently from Waller, what Evans prioritized that Garner didn't, why Corea sounds like Corea. This is a masterclass in comparative listening.

Watching this DVD is like moving through a living timeline of swing, stride, bebop, cool jazz, and fusion, each style instantly recognizable once you hear how a master's touch reshapes the same harmonic foundation. The repeated theme becomes a lens that sharpens your ear to the particular textures, rhythmic feels, and harmonic choices that define each era.

Jazz piano students seeking to understand the tradition from which they learn, and teachers building a curriculum that grounds modern playing in historical context. Advanced pianists preparing for jazz studies auditions will find here a concise visual and sonic reference to the major voices they should know.

• Study each pianist's interpretation in isolation before moving to the next. Pause between performances to absorb the specific technical and conceptual choices at work.
• Transcribe passages from at least three different pianists' versions of the theme. Notation captures what listening alone can miss about harmonic reharmonization, comping density, and rhythmic displacement.
• Play the theme yourself using each pianist's approach as a model. Imitation is the fastest path to internalization; your fingers learn what your ears hear.

Use this in jazz history or jazz piano study sequences, assigning specific sections as homework that corresponds to the period you're teaching. Program individual performances as opening or closing moments in jazz ensemble rehearsals to connect your students' playing to the giants. It works especially well as preparation before ensemble members encounter jazz standards they may later perform.

• Identifying and internalizing stylistic traits across multiple jazz eras (stride, swing, bebop, cool jazz, fusion)
• Hearing how harmonic reharmonization and comping patterns distinguish individual pianists
• Understanding the relationship between technical facility and artistic voice
• Recognizing common threads that connect seemingly different jazz piano traditions