This page features some of the most useful apps/software, books and web-links for developing your jazz skills. It also has some hidden gems - including a host of bootleg recordings that have never been released!
DAW’s
DAW stands for ‘Digital Audio Workstation’. These are pieces of software that people use to record music into. There is a wide range of DAW’s from free software (Audacity and Garageband (for Apple users)) to the industry standard Logic X, Protools and for electronic music lovers; Ableton and Cubase. Most softwares have a ‘light’ version for you to explore for free or a trial and to make the most of DAW’s you will need a midi-keyboard for tracking your software instruments and a microphone and audio interface for anything you want to capture that is live. A pair of good headphones is also recommended.
iRealPro
Hand in NYC
The iRealPro application is available for purchase on Android, iPhone and both laptop and desktop computers/macs. It’s an all-in-one midi rhythm section that will play any chord sequence you design, in almost any jazz style. You can change the key, the tempo and the rhythm section instruments - so this is perfect for both front-line and comping instruments (as you can drop out any instrument from the track). There’s also a community of pre-build ‘real books’ to download for free. My favourite is Jazz 1300, which contains 1300 jazz standards to get you started but there are packs from so many genres available, built by the community and free to download!
Notation Software
There are several pieces of notation software that people use. These allow you to write your compositions on manuscript and hear them played back (usually by a pretty rubbish sounding MIDI sample). They are used for scoring everything from lead sheets to full, orchestral scores and the industry standard is Sibelius. An alternative to this is Dorico and both offer free light versions for you to explore. They are limited, but a great place to start!
The Amazing Slow Downer
The Amazing Slow Downer is the best friend of all new transcribers. It’s a piece of software that allows you to slow down the music, but maintain the pitch. By doing this, you can loop sections of your provides the means to slow down the music, so you can learn the music in real-time by playing it from a CD, MP3, WAV, AIFF, MP4, WMA and many other file formats.
Other features include: Increasing the music speed to up to twice the normal rate - making pitch adjustments in semi-tones at full or lower speed - setting loop points - using keyboard shortcuts.
Session Band
Geoff Gasgoyne
Session Band is a similar piece of software to the iRealPro app, but instead of using the unrealistic MIDI sounds (that often don’t feel like a real band) it uses live samples of top jazz musicians playing in real time. It’s a brilliant resource, but it doesn’t come with the option to download all the jazz standard chord progressions - you have to build them yourself using the app or buy packs of specific tunes that they have created/got the license for.
JazzFusion.tv
An inspiring resource of bootleg concerts and broadcasts packed full of the late 60's to late '80s! It might have. a cheesy name but it’s well worth a visit - featuring bootlegs of greats including Miles Davis, John Scofield, Jaco Pastorious, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Michael Brecker, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea, Hermeto Pascoal and so many more
N.B. It’s a pre-smart phone website, so you’ll need to run it through your laptop, but don’t let this put you off - it’s FREE!
North Sea Jazz - Youtube
Packed full of live videos of the biggest names in jazz, funk, soul and popular music North Sea Jazz documents its world-famous jazz festival on YouTube. There are so many hidden gems hiding here and waiting for you to watch and listen!
Dummerless Jazz Tunes
Gareth Lockrane
Gareth Lockrane is the Head of Junior Jazz at the Royal Academy of Music in London (UK). He’s also an extremely talented professional flautist and composer. He’s collated over eight hours of music from jazz greats on this Spotify playlist so that drummers can experience playing with some of the most famous jazz names on the planet!
The Jazz Podcast
Rob Cope & Dan Farrant
Run by two London-based jazz musicians, The Jazz Podcast collection now has over 100 episodes with UK artists (and one or two international ones too). The guys dig deep into the stories behind both the people and the music they make with interviews often lasting an hour or so. Thoroughly entertaining and certain to make you smile, The Jazz Podcast is well worth checking out.
Jazz Playlists - Spotify
All streaming platforms have a vast array of carefully curated playlists to help introduce you to all forms of jazz music. Here are some of my favourite Spotify lists for you to check out; featuring everything from swinging classics to new, UK artists.
MusicTheory.net
If you are new to general music theory, or looking at notated music for the first time then MusicTheory.net is a great place to start. It has lots of lessons to help get you started and they are free to access, in bitesize chunks and simple to follow. There are also some exercises to test yourself along the way.
Lessons include things such as: clefs, notes on staves, time signatures, intervals and chord recognition etc.
The Orchestra: A User’s Manual.
Andrew Hugill
For keen composers, arrangers and orchestrators, this comprehensive guide gives you examples of ranges, textures and extended techniques for the whole orchestra! Often with video demonstrations or audio accompaniments. If you want to know more about writing for strings, brass or winds then this is a wonderful resource.
JazzDiscography.com
Steve Albin & Michael Fitzgerald
Steve and Michael have created BRIAN; a vast and versatile jazz discography search engine where you can find out the full, historical listings of a huge array of jazz artists. It can be a little fiddly to install - but it’s free and they have video’s on how to get it up and running. A great resource for finding those rare gems that you didn’t know existed.
Jazz Transcriptions
Charles McNeal
Charles McNeal is a world-class saxophonist. He’s worked with Wynton Marsalis, McCoy Tyner, Roberta Flack, The Temptations, Boz Scaggs and many more. He’s also an avid transcriber and shares all of his transcriptions for free on his website. There are now dozens for you to get stuck into and there’s a donation button if you enjoy them.
N.B. This doesn’t mean that you don’t need to transcribe yourself, but they are great technical exercises and a useful way to look at the jazz masters in action.
London Jazz News
Seb Scotney & Co.
London Jazz News is a free to access website packed full of previews, reviews and interviews with jazz musicians from all over the world. It’s a great way to find out about new music, gigs that are happening and to learn a lot from a wide variety of musicians.
The Jazz Theory Book
Mark Levine
Known as the ‘jazz bible’, Levine’s The Jazz Theory Book is a comprehensive guide to jazz harmony. It explores it from the simple to the complicated and is a wonderful resource that will help to answer your questions as you practise. It’s quite dense, so not a book to read cover to cover, but perfect for dipping in and out of to get that information that you are looking for.
How to Improvise
Hal Crook
How to Improvise is a wonderful book offering a natural and organic approach to developing your jazz skills. It tackles one thing at a time and balances the harmonic concepts with the all important aural and melodic skills, offering you examples of all exercises and example practise diaries too!
Inside Improvisation
Jerry Bergonzi
Inside Improvisation is a series of books by the internationally acclaimed saxophonist and educator Jerry Bergonzi. Each book, takes an element of his unique approach to learning how to improvise; with a focus on aspects including melodic structures, pentatonics, hexatonics and other note groupings.
Modern Jazz Voicing’s
Ted Pease & Ken Pullig
Modern Jazz Voicing’s teaches you to add colour, character and sophistication to your chord voicing’s. It’s perfect for all chordal, comping instruments and incredibly useful for composers and arrangers looking to enhance their knowledge. This book covers advanced arranging and performing techniques from three-to-six part harmony.
Add color, character, and sophistication to your chord voicings. Learn to use fourths, clusters, upper-structure triads, and other advanced arranging and performing techniques for three to six parts.
Triadic Chromatic Approach
George Garzone
This is an incredibly advanced approach and one not to be looked at by the faint-hearted. George Garzone looks at an approach to improvisation that uses only triads and chromaticism in what he dubbs his Triadic Chromatic Approach. It’s brilliant - but VERY, VERY DIFFICULT!!!!!