Somehow when folks talk about jazz chords they see them in an entirely different category from “regular chords”. So are they different? If so, how? This short video answers that question:

Then click here: “Super Chords Made Super Simple!”

Sadly, jazz is slowly becoming a dying art. Cities were once full of jazz clubs, schools were teaching jazz as part of their curriculum and the “coolness” of jazz was alive and well. It was as much a part of American culture as baseball.

The modern day is much different. Many of those storied downtown clubs have closed, schools don’t have the budget to teach the many different styles of music, and only the major colleges and universities now have jazz studies curriculums as part of their degree programs.

With all of the headwinds facing jazz music, that doesn’t mean that it is dead. Still, there are a large amount of people who like to play as well as listen to jazz and if that’s you, there are plenty of reasons why learning how to play jazz piano is not a waste of time. There are many places to play, bands to join, and modern jazz musicians are still producing a lot of new music. With that in mind, let’s look at how we can get started learning.

It’s Easier than you Think

Jazz is not an easy style of music to learn but from a practical standpoint, you can sit in with a jazz band and sound half-way decent much earlier in your development than orchestral music. Imagine trying to sit in with a professional orchestra playing a piano concerto just a few months in to your lessons. With jazz, you can do that.

Why? In part because the amount of chords you deal with in jazz is smaller and those chords often come in a predictable pattern. Every jazz pianist, for example, must learn the 12 bar blues progression in all keys that are common to jazz music. Once you know that, you know the chord progression of a large amount of jazz music and for those songs that don’t fall in to the pattern, you quickly learn by experience.
You should also learn to read a lead sheet. A lead sheet has the melody written out in traditional music notation as well as the chord symbols above it. Learn to read those chord symbols and how to properly voice the chords and you can play with a jazz group. You probably can’t solo with them yet but you can provide chords and background accompaniment. The best way to learn how to read a lead sheet is to purchase a fake book. The New Real Fakebook is one that is well known among jazz musicians.

Anybody who studied jazz in school or took lessons on any instrument related to jazz probably used the Aebersold recordings. This collection has more than 100 volumes of common jazz music. Some of the recordings have the lead line taken out so you can practice soloing and other tracks only have the melody so you can practice accompanying a melody. The Aebersold recordings may be the best way to learn how to play along with a jazz band and best of all, they’re fun!

Every jazz musician will have to learn to solo at some point. Most teachers advise to start with the first 5 notes of the chord and only play 2 or 3 notes per measure. From there, you can work up to more notes and more complicated rhythms.

As always, the best way to learn how to play jazz piano is to take lessons. If your goal is to learn jazz piano, make sure your teacher has experience in this area but remember that regardless of the style you want to learn, you should take the time to learn the basics of piano playing so expect some “classical” training in addition to studying jazz.

For a course in Jazz & Blues Runs On The Piano, click here.

You can simulate the sound of a jazz waltz by using the “frozen fingers” technique (for beginners) and playing just three chords. Watch this short video and you’ll get the idea:

For more videos like this, go to my YouTube video channel.

From amongst all the jazz legends and pop legendary pianists, Thelonious Monk is most known for what can be called ‘straight forward jazz’. Born Thelonious Sphere Monk on the 10th of October 1917, Monk began playing the piano at the tender age of nine. Most of what he knew on the piano was self taught in addition to the tricks he learned while slyly dropping in on his elder sister Marian’s piano classes and a little formal training.He dropped out of Stuyvesant High School where he was doing his schooling to start playing the piano professionally. He toured with an evangelist for whose meetings he played the church organ. In his later teens, he got gigs playing jazz piano. He was the house pianist at a club - Minton’s Playhouse - in the early 40’s. His influences at the time were most the stride pianists of the era - Duke Ellington, James P Johnson and the likes.
His trademark style of playing was something that he polished incessantly during the cutting competitions that took place at the club late at night featuring all the piano greats of the time. His stint at Minton’s Playhouse brought him in touch with the other exponents of Bebop - Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Kenny Clarke. It is this period of time that the bebop style of playing was created . He influenced the the bebop style of playing so much that he has arguably been referred to as the founder of bebop.

Monk then moved on to playing for groups. His first ever studio recording was made featuring the Coleman Hawkins quartet in 1944. He became the leader of the Blue Note three years later. His recordings with Blue Note displayed his penchant for coming up with composing music with strong melodies. The same year saw his marriage to Nellie Smith, with whom he had two children. His son TS Monk was born in 1949. He is a jazz drummer, composer and band leader. His daughter Barbara was born in 1953.

In 1951, Monk ran into trouble with the police. A car in which he and fellow pianist Bud Powell was found to contain narcotics. During the trial against Bud Powell, he refused serve as witness testifying against Bud Powell. As a result, his New York City Cabaret Card was taken away by the police. Thus not being able to play in New York where there was liquor being served. He continued to play in other places though.

He continued recording, touring and composing. After his contract with Blue Note Records lapsed, he moves to prestige records. At Prestige, he recorded some not-so-successful but critically acclaimed albums with Sonny Rollins on saxophone and Art Blakey on drums. It was around this time that the famous Christmas Eve sessions were recorded which were released in the form of the two albums - The Modern Jazz Giants and Bags Groove and Miles Davis - both of these by Miles Davis.

He visited Europe in 1954. He went to Paris to record and perform. He met jazz patron and member of the Rothschild family, Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, with whom he struck a friendship that lasted his life long.

Though Monk was well recognized in jazz circles by his contemporaries and the jazz audience , his records didn’t sell as well. He shifted from Prestige Records to Riverside Records, who bought out his contract. In an effort to get the masses in tune with his style of music (which was thought to be too difficult at the time for the average listener), Riverside asked him to record an album two album of his own versions of the jazz standards of the time.

Thus Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington was released with the intention of increasing Monk’s market. The album has Duke Wellington’s tunes redone by Monk for which he had to study Duke Ellington’s pieces from scratch. On his next release, Brilliant Corners, he got a chance to actually record his own tunes. Expectedly the title track of the album was so difficult that it had to be put together from a total of three takes. Sony Rollins accompanied him on the album.

Keith Jarrett was born in Allentown in Pennsylvania on the 8th of May, 1945. A prodigy at a very young age, he had his first public appearance when he was six years old. He had lots of support to the extent that he was offered a chance to study and learn composition with Nadia Boulanger, the revered French piano teacher, in Paris.

He admitted once that what ticked on his interest in the jazz was a Dave Brubeck performance that he attended. He took to jazz when he was a teenager and soon started becoming good at it. As he played more of jazz, he had the strong urge to join the local jazz scene.

After he graduated from school, he shifted base to Boston, Massachusetts. It was here that he did a stint at the Berklee College of Music. He also had a gig playing cocktail piano while studying at Berklee. Upon finishing his tour, he went to New York and where he had a regular gig in a club - Village Vanguard. What followed was his association with many groups. One of the first groups on that list is The Jazz Messengers. He met his future long time collaborator Jack DeJohnette while playing for another group Charles Lloyd Quartet.

The group recorded one of the most important jazz recordings of the 60’s – their 1966 album Forest Flower. He was leader in a trio with Paul Motian and Charlie Haden and He made his debut recording as leader the following year Life Between The Exit Signs which was followed by another in 68’ – Restoration Ruin. It was one of the most impressive in the list of works that he is known for. Restoration Ruin was unique mainly because he did everything except play the piano – including playing every single other instrument and the vocals – in the album which was anything but jazz. It was by any definition folk rock hence different from most of the work that he has recorded so far. The trio had one last release – a live album titles Somewhere Before.

The next stint that Keith had was with Miles Davis playing with the legend in the Miles Davis group. After Miles saw Keith play, he was so impressed that he invited him to play along with the group. When he joined the group, the playing of the Contempo electric organ and Rhodes electric piano was shared by him and band mate Chick Corea. After Chick Corea left the band, he handled both the instruments at times playing both at the same time.

Playing an electric instrument was not an option that he preferred to exercise. Despite this, he stuck with the band out of a stronger wish to play with Miles Davis and also with Jack DeJohnette who was a part of the group at the time. His long time association with Miles Davis resulted in him playing with the genius on five of his releases including The Cellar Door sessions recorded live at the Washington DC nightclub, Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East, The Cellar Door and Live-Evil which consisted of edited recording of live performances at The Cellar Door.

More extensive recording from live performances there were put together as The Complete Cellar Door Sessions. Another similar series of compositions had Miles and Keith sharing company – The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions – which was recorded for a documentary on boxing champ Jack Johnson.

The Haden – Motain – Jarrett continued to play for six years from 1971 to 1976. They had Dewey Redman on the saxophone after which they became the American Quartet. They had sidemen play with them at times on guitar and percussion. One common feature of the original trio members was that they were multi – instrumentalists. You’d hear each one playing different instruments on their recordings and live shows.

Jarrett’s versatility went as far as the saxophone and percussion in addition to the piano, Redman as far as a Chinese double reed instrument – musette and the remaining two members on various forms of percussion. They group experimented with their sound a lot. Hayden devised a way to play the acoustic bass producing from it new percussive and plucked sounds. He played it through a wah-wah pedal on the track Mortgage On My Soul.

Jarrett achieved a lot more with groups like the European Quartet and his solo piano outings. His solo piano concerts had him leaving the audience at suspense. The extreme point of this habit was when he didn’t play for minutes while the audience got restless. Then someone shouted “D Flat” after which he immediately hit an improvisation in D Flat.

Bill Evans was born on the 6th of August, 1929 in Plainfield, New Jersey. He started learning to play the piano when he was six years old. In 7 years, he added two more instruments to his repertoire. His first gig was when his brother Harry had to be substituted for Buddy Valentino’s band. He was familiar with the music it was the same kind of music that he was practicing at home. He continued playing boogie-woogie there on in clubs in and around New York City.

He was awarded a scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana University where he played to an audience Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto in a recital in 1950. He left the institute with a degree in piano performance and teaching. While in college, he founded the Delta Omega Chapter of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia – a fraternity for people with an interest in music.

After graduation, he served in US Army after which he returned to New York and continued to gig. He set himself up as a sideman for bands playing Third Stream jazz - an innovative mixture of classical music and jazz. While building up his reputation, he was a part of many studio recordings. He worked with George Russell to come up with work like Concerto for Billy the Kid and All About Rosie. He also was on albums by Tony Scott, Oliver Nelson, Art Farmer and Charles Mingus with whom he recorded during this period of time.

His first recording of his own material was with his 1956 album New Jazz Conceptions. He got make his debut with album after being referred by Mundell Lowe to producer Orrin Keepnews. In 58’, he was invited to play with Miles Davis and the Miles Davis Sextet. The short stint that he had with the sextet was iconic as the sound of the sextet thereafter took a new direction.

Miles Davis describes in his that Bill Evans style of playing in his autobiography. “Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall.”

He left the band after running into trouble with drugs and also in search of new ground to conquer. He recorded Everybody Digs Bill Evans which had a new style that he had been working on at the time. After a short recording stint recording the iconic 1959 album Kind of Blue, he went back solo and formed his own trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian on the drums. The trio stuck to jazz standards and original composition involving a lot of improvisation.

They had four albums between 1959 and 1961 – Portrait In Jazz, Explorations, Sunday At The Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby. All these four album barring Portrait In jazz were released in 1961. Waltz I jazz was released in 59’. Sunday At The Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby are regarded as one of the greatest jazz recordings.

Evans experimented with interplay with a little more freedom with his trio. He used slow ballad like tempos for the songs and used quiet volume levels which was the first that it was ever done in jazz piano. His chords had a classical touch to it becoming more and more impressionistic. His left hand playing and right hand playing were so complimentary that you could see a Bud Powell influence.

Pushing the lid further, Evans was the pioneer of avoiding bebop and other jazz forms in favor a new style – modal jazz. His bassist collaborator Scott LaFaro passed away young at 25 which made Evans take some time off to come to terms with his death. Breaking more ground in 1962, he recorded an album that is considered a classic jazz piano and guitar duet album.

He got bassist Chuck Israel to take the place of LaFaro in the trio. The new group continued recording winning a Grammy for their 1963 release Conversations With Myself. It was not all rosy a period for the trio with their music not selling well. Their manager Helen Keane brought the band back on track.

The entry of bassist Eddie Gomes into the band make things look up a bit creatively for the band. The 1968 live recording Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival is considered the pianist’s best because of the interplay and the energy that the band displayed throughout the show.

Bill Evans passed away on the 15th of September, 1980 due to a bleeding ulcer, cirrhosis and bronchial pneumonia.