Jazz Piano
To learn more about jazz, visit the dedicated Jazz Research Guide. Also see the page Instruments of Popular Music to learn more about piano played in popular music contexts.
Recommended Books
The Music Collection includes many books on jazz piano, including biographies of famous jazz pianists as well as technique manuals. Biographies are classified in ML 417, while instructional texts are classified in MT 239. The recommended books below are meant to capture the range of possibilities and are sorted by their call numbers to ease browsing. Click on the info icon to see a description of the book.
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The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington
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Duke Ellington is widely held to be the greatest jazz composer and one of the most significant cultural icons of the twentieth century. This comprehensive and accessible Companion is the first collection of essays to survey, in depth, Ellington's career, music, and place in popular culture. An international cast of authors includes renowned scholars, critics, composers, and jazz musicians. Organized in three parts, the Companion first sets Ellington's life and work in context, providing new information about his formative years, method of composing, interactions with other musicians, and activities abroad; its second part gives a complete artistic biography of Ellington; and the final section is a series of specific musical studies, including chapters on Ellington and song-writing, the jazz piano, descriptive music, and the blues. Featuring a chronology of the composer's life and major recordings, this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Ellington's enduring artistic legacy.
Call Number: ML410.E44 C34 2014Publication Date: 2014 -
Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings
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Bill Evans (1929-1980) is universally acknowledged as one of the most influential of all jazz pianists. Classically trained on flute, violin, and piano, Evans chose jazz - specifically the jazz piano trio - as his medium. This biography tells Evan's story. Based on research and conversations with many of Evan's friends and colleagues, as well as Pettinger's firsthand memories of performances at the Village Vanguard in New York and Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London, it describes the life, the musicmaking and the legacy of this major American jazz artist. The author assesses Evan's recordings and analyzes his technique, tone production, approach to group playing, and compositional methods. With a full discography and dozens of photographs, the volume should be welcomed by jazz fans and general readers alike.
Call Number: ML417.E9 P53 1998Publication Date: 1998 -
Possibilities
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Herbie Hancock is a true icon of modern music: a jazz pianist and composer whose illustrious career has spanned seven decades and 14 Grammy Awards. Hancock's memoir will examine his extraordinary career, from his beginnings as a child prodigy in Chicago to his work with artists including Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Stevie Wonder, Kathleen Battle, Joni Mitchell, Sting, Paul Simon, Carlos Santana, Annie Lennox, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, and Tina Turner. He recalls learning to play the piano, changing the face of jazz, his marriage, and his discovery of Buddhism.
Call Number: ML417.H23 A3 2014Publication Date: 2014 -
Monk's Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the Making
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Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) was one of jazz's greatest and most enigmatic figures. As a composer, pianist, and bandleader, Monk both extended the piano tradition known as Harlem stride and was at the center of modern jazz's creation during the 1940s, setting the stage for the experimentalism of the 1960s and '70s. This pathbreaking study combines cultural theory, biography, and musical analysis to shed new light on Monk's music and on the jazz canon itself. Gabriel Solis shows how the work of this stubbornly nonconformist composer emerged from the jazz world's fringes to find a central place in its canon. Solis reaches well beyond the usual life-and-times biography to address larger issues in jazz scholarship--ethnography and the role of memory in history's construction. He considers how Monk's stature has grown, from the narrowly focused wing of the avant-garde in the 1960s and '70s to the present, where he is claimed as an influence by musicians of all kinds. He looks at the ways musical lineages are created in the jazz world and, in the process, addresses the question of how musicians use performance itself to maintain, interpret, and debate the history of the musical tradition we call jazz.
Call Number: ML417.M846 S55 2008 and EBSCOhost EbooksPublication Date: 2007 -
A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson
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Oscar Peterson's career as a jazz pianist has spanned over five decades. During that time, he has recorded nearly 90 albums, won seven Grammys, and earned lifetime achievement awards from the Black Theatre Workshop, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, and the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. He has played with, and come to know, many of the genre's greatest contributors, including Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. Peterson chronicles his storied career in A Jazz Odyssey- My Life in Jazz. Organized chronologically, A Jazz Odyssey takes readers through the development of jazz over the course of the late 20th century as seen by one of the jazz world's most celebrated figures. Peterson guides readers through the turbulent 1940s, when he was playing with the Johnny Holmes Orchestra in Montreal, and first met Norman Granz - the jazz producer who would launch his career. A Jazz Odyssey also brings readers to the birth of the Oscar Peterson Trio - where Peterson would hone his trademark arrangement of piano, guitar, and bass and work with the likes of Ray Brown, Barney Kessel, and Herb Ellis. Peterson speaks candidly about his personal life throughout A Jazz Odyssey - giving readers a rare look at the private life of the jazz star.
Call Number: ML417.P46 A3 2002Publication Date: 2002 -
The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop
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Bud Powell was not only one of the greatest bebop pianists of all time, he stands as one of the twentieth century's most dynamic and fiercely adventurous musical minds. His expansive musicianship, riveting performances, and inventive compositions expanded the bebop idiom and pushed jazz musicians of all stripes to higher standards of performance. Yet Powell remains one of American music's most misunderstood figures, and the story of his exceptional talent is often overshadowed by his history of alcohol abuse, mental instability, and brutalization at the hands of white authorities. In this first extended study of the social significance of Powell's place in the American musical landscape, Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. shows how the pianist expanded his own artistic horizons and moved his chosen idiom into new realms. Illuminating and multi-layered, The Amazing Bud Powell centralizes Powell's contributions as it details the collision of two vibrant political economies: the discourses of art and the practice of blackness.
Call Number: ML417.P73 R36 2013Publication Date: 2013 -
Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams
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Mary Lou Williams -- pianist, arranger, composer, and probably the most influential woman in the history of jazz -- receives the attention she has long deserved in the definitive biography by a leading scholar of women in jazz. The illegitimate child of an impoverished and indifferent mother, Williams began performing publicly at the age of seven when she became known admiringly in her native Pittsburgh as "the little piano girl of East Liberty," playing one day for the Mellons at bridge teas and the next in gambling dens where the hat was passed for change. She grew up with the jazz of the early part of the century, championed by the likes of Earl Hines and Fats Waller, yet unlike so many other musicians of her time, she was open to new forms in jazz -- she was an early champion of bop, and a mentor and colleague to its central figures, such as Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell -- and in broader musical styles as well (after her conversion to Catholicism, she wrote masses and other sacred music). Most of the other famous women in jazz -- Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald -- have been singers. Williams was instead a phenomenal pianist who performed solo, with small groups and big bands, in vaudeville and clubs, and on numerous records. But she is equally well known today as a composer and arranger of remarkable versatility and power, having worked with, among others, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. Her compositions have been recorded by artists as varied as Marian McPartland, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat "King" Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and herself -- and, more recently, by cutting-edge players Geri Allen and Dave Douglas. But Williams was more than "just a musician"; her interests were catholic in both senses, and she struggled to combine her love of music with her love of God. She was a tireless humanitarian, and made ongoing attempts to help dozens of down-and-out musicians; in the 1950s, her apartment was, at times, virtually a rehab. Though she was often in emotional despair, she found comfort for her many disappointments and hurts not only in her music but in her spirituality. Linda Dahl, granted unprecedented access to the large Williams archive, has given us the whole of Williams's very full life, from her often harrowing days on the road to her tumultuous marriages and love affairs, from the ups and downs of her unique fifty-year career to the remarkable spirituality that came to inform both her daily life and her music. This is a striking portrait of one of our least understood and most important musicians.
Call Number: ML417.W515 D34 1999Publication Date: 1999 -
Samba Hanon: 50 Exercises for the Beginning to Professional Pianist
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50 essential Latin patterns for all pianists! Covers styles such as samba, bossa nova, lambada, bahia and partido alto, and artists including Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Astrud Gilberto, Gilberto Gil, and others.
Call Number: MT239.D36 S36 2007Publication Date: 2007 -
Contemporary Jazz Piano: The Complete Guide with CD!
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This comprehensive book with online audio will teach you the basic skills needed to play the variety of styles that comprise contemporary jazz piano. From comping to soloing, you'll learn the theory, tools, and techniques used by the pros. The accompanying audio demonstrates most of the music examples in the book. The full-band tracks feature the rhythm section on the left channel and the piano on the right channel, so you can play along with the band! The audio is accessed online using the unique code inside each book and can be streamed or downloaded. The audio files include PLAYBACK+, a multi-functional audio player that allows you to slow down audio without changing pitch, set loop points, change keys, and pan left or right.
Call Number: MT239.H37 C6 2010Publication Date: 2010 -
Jazz Piano: A Complete Guide to Jazz Theory and Improvisation
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Learn the essential concepts of jazz harmony and melody with Jazz Piano. This book and CD package contains a wealth of knowledge for any aspiring jazz musician. The accompanying CD holds 57 tracks for you to play along with and hone your improvising skills. It covers all aspects of jazz piano, including: seventh, altered and extended chords; progressions; rootless voicings; octave voicings; tritone substitution; functional harmony; chromatic harmony; scales and modes; what to play over various chord types; building melodies; soloing; and more!
Call Number: MT239.K54 J37 2004Publication Date: 2004 -
Jazz for the Young Pianist: Exercises, Minuets, Etudes, and Pieces
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Legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson has long been devoted to the education of piano students. In this book he offers dozens of pieces designed to empower the student, whether novice or classically trained, with the technique needed to become an accomplished jazz pianist.
Call Number: MT239.P4 J3Publication Date: 1965 -
Latin Jazz Piano: The Complete Guide with CD!
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This book teaches traditional Latin music from Cuba and Brazil, addressing the three roles that the jazz pianist typically plays: as a member of an accompanying rhythm section; as a lead instrument within an ensemble; and as a soloist. The audio features many of the examples in the book, plus play-along combo tracks. Covers: chord voicings, comping, montunos, lead sheets and more. Audio is accessed online using the unique code inside the book and can be streamed or downloaded. The audio files include PLAYBACK+, a multi-functional audio player that allows you to slow down audio without changing pitch, set loop points, change keys, and pan left or right.
Call Number: MT239.V35 L3 2010Publication Date: 2010
Transcriptions and Sheet Music
Dick Hyman's Century of Jazz Piano Transcribed! (with DVD)
M20.H96 D5 2012- The Very Best of Oscar Peterson
M32.8.P48 V4 2005 - Earl "Fatha" Hines: Selected Piano Solos, 1928-1941
M2 .R2375 V.56 - Fats Waller: Performances in Transcription, 1927-1943
M2 .R2375 V.41 - Gospel Improv: Jazz-Style Improvisations for Solo Piano
M38.5 .G65 2005 - Bill Evans Plays Standards
M32.8.B55 1999 - The Genius of Duke Ellington
M38.5.E44 G4 1986 - "On Green Dolphin Street" & 55 Great Jazz Piano Solos
M32.8 .O65 1984 - Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton: The Collected Piano Music
M22.M698 P5 1982 - The Genius of Teddy Wilson
M38.5.W54 G4 1980z - Jazz Interpretations, by Count Basie
M32.8.B37 J39 1900z
Dick Hyman's Century of Jazz Piano Transcribed! (with DVD)For more sheet music and scores, search the Library of Congress Subject Heading Piano Music (Jazz).
Recommended DVDs
Jazz Master Class Series from NYU:
Jazz Icons DVD Series (Live Performances):
- Count Basie: Live in '62 DVD Video 5289
- Dave Brubeck: Live in '64 & '66 DVD Video 5346
- Duke Ellington: Live in '58 DVD Video 5342
- Bill Evans: Live '64 - '75 DVD Video 7953
- Erroll Garner: Live in '63 & '64 DVD Video 7946
- Thelonious Monk: Live in '66 DVD Video 5283
- Oscar Peterson: Live in '63, '64, & '65 DVD Video 7950
Documentaries:
Interlibrary Loan
Users are encouraged to search for items beyond University Libraries' catalog via RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and WorldCat. Materials not available in print or online may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow up to seven days for electronic delivery and up to fourteen days for delivery of physical items.