Reader reviews

• Mark Swigart

  (4/5)

  Holy Crap Batman
  That’s about as far out as you can take it!
  Wow!
  (Fun Though)
• David Cantoni

  (4/5)

  1 person found this helpful

  You can go to the usual real books if you want the original chords. This one is different, on some tunes the reharm work better. There are ones that could be "questionable". David Hazeltine is great pianist and great musician, it's a titanic task to reharm ALL the songs. Also it works as a trigger for your OWN ideas... you could play the A section reharmonized and then keep the classic chords for the B section, or vice-versa... etc.

  1 person found this helpful

• tony hayes

  (5/5)

  1 person found this helpful

  Nice chord ideas,some nice new tunes included,much fun playing through this

  1 person found this helpful

• Si Boy, Si Boy

  (1/5)

  6 people found this helpful

  Absolute crap. This book is just a reharminization exercise by the editor. This guy takes perfectly good standards and puts his 'spin' on it to try to...I don't know...dazzle you with his chordal choices? The chordal choices SUCK and is one guy's pretentious interpretation of where he thinks this stuff should go. Here's the thing: each chord chosen to support the melody takes the darn thing too far out of it's melodic sonority. It changes some of the tunes too much. You can't recognize them anymore (which is the whole point of this expensive, overwrought exercise, isn't it). YOU CANNOT SOLO OVER ALL OF THESE STUPID REHARMONIZATIONS!!! As I mentioned, the chords this guy chose just supports the melody and is all over the place. Every solo you will take using this guy's choices is an exploration in Lydian Harmonic/Cecil Taylor territory, at best. At worst it's tantamount to emptying your overfull bowels into a dark soupy, viscous mess on the sheet music (which is what this is). Do yourself a favour guys. If you want to learn how to play nicely over these standards DO NOT FREAKING READ OR FOR HEAVENS SAKE, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!!! It will confuse you and make the act of playing jazz and improvising way harder than it really is. it will also make you sound shittier because this guy's reharmonizations will be stuck in your head forever never to leave the darkness.
  
  This book reminds me of another pretentious crap of a book: "All the Right Changes" edited by Dick Hyman. Dick Hyman was a fantastic pianist who played on soundtracks and was a great NY/Harlem stride pianist for the modern era. This guy got a publishing deal to do a compendium of stanrds using HIS interpretations of chords. I bought it for the princely sum of almost $30 many, many years ago and promptly became confused aobut these standards. This stupid Enhanced Chords version will do the same damage to you.
  
  Avoid it at all costs. Scribd, if you are reading this...take this monstrosity off the list of Real Books. it's worthless. I would give it a -5 stars if I could.

  6 people found this helpful

• Bill Murphy

  (5/5)

  1 person found this helpful

  It really opens up what you can do with a nice jazz standard. Anything you can do with chords you can with solo lines also. You don’t have to do everything if you don’t want to. It is just ideas for your ears to help open up your own harmonic color palate and other possibilities which is what jazz is all about seeking out new pathways. A lot the alterations are mainstream and maybe a stretch on some. But I hear Bill Evans .Chick, all the greats to some type reharmonization on standard tunes . Think of it as a idea starter. I play guitar and I am having fun going down the rabbit holes it sends me down.

  1 person found this helpful