Thinking in Jazz : The Infinite Art of Improvisation (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology Series)

The blurb on the back cover of this book has a slight understatement... It begins, "A landmark in jazz studies,"Not since the advent of the long playing record and the publication of Leonard Feather's "Encyclopedia of Jazz" has anyone made such an enormous, substantive, light shedding contribution to Jazz (outside a recording studio.) This book is a must for everyone... and in fact, its divided into two parts... one which *is* for everyone, and goes into how musicians come up, hone their skills, learn to interact, develop and whatnot, and then the second half, which is more for musicians and features close to 400 pages of musical examples - - a text book in musical studies itself.As a musician myself, I have long suspected that Jazz isn't just a bunch of patterns and scales. It is a culture, an attitude, an approach, and way of thinking... this book not only confirms it, but it substantively will take you into the mind of its foremost vetarans and practitioners. With its balance between information that's anecdotal as well as analytical, and Berliner's excellent writing style (despite the size of the book, he just draws you in the pages flow by one by one) - - this is must reading...Almost a half a century ago Leonard Feather told us about the masters, now Berliner draws us into their minds. It is my hope that Jazz students (and fans) alike will begin taking up this book as they begin their journeys, and as a result, it invigorates and revitalizes the music as its never been before !

I am no jazz musician. In fact, I am not a musician at all and musical theory seems to pass beyond my understanding altogether. However, Paul Berliner's remarkable anthropological study offers more that insight and guidance for jazz musicians as they develop their improvisational skills: it provides an outline for education / learning that illuminates any creative field. Berliner conducts and presents a valuable and methodical study that draws from both his anthropological background as well as his experience as a jazz musician. As an architect who is also an educator, I continue to find valuable insight that has shaped my own thinking. In addition, this book has given me a richer experience as I listen to this remarkable genre of music that continues to captivate me (especially hard-bop, modal, free jazz, and fusion). I recommend this for all listeners of jazz or practitioners in a creative field who are interested in thinking / learning and what to reach beneath the surface of things. Its implications are compelling.

The older players will consider half of the book as old news and maybe get some insights from the rest of the book. For the younger player this book is great. Lets you in on how players view the music, rehearsals, performances and culture. Easy to understand and full of good examples. Like a lot of digital books, it's got too many spelling errors. The words "play a" as in "They'll play a tune" turn into "They'll playa tune". But well worth the price and time.

I bought the Kindle edition. Great book! Two points I want to address:1. Some very minor OCR issues. "1" instead of "I" and some "rn" instead of "m". No big problems.2. The second half of the book is musical examples with analysis and commentary. This would be better viewed on a kindle DX perhaps. And flipping back and forth between the text and the musical notation would flow better on a PC (kindle for pc software).Just so you know...

shockingly fat book, very dense and a tough read if you're not already a jazz expert, which I'm not. For jazz players, a great resource. For listeners, probably too detailed.

This is certainly a text for ethnomusicologists. An in depth report on the performance of Jazz. This text is a thorough study of improvisation.I would like to recommend another book for musicians and non-musicians who enjoy jazz. "Reading Jazz" edited by David Meltzer. This contains writings about jazz.

Dense and historical. Not as much music theory or technique as I had hoped, but clearly a good historical treatment of jazz improvisation.

A serious jazz studies. I'm glad to have these book, It analyses the main basis of the most wonderful music in the world : Jazz

A great book for someone who wants to understand the process of learning to play jazz and what it is the musicians are doing. It’s not a “how to play “ book and it’s not a book for the listener. More a book for the aspiring musician.

Excellent

Big beautiful book.Very easy to read, and reads quite quickly. Recommended for those interested in the ethnographic study of jazz.

eccelent

Completely amazing! A wonderful insight - easy to read and inspirational. A must for all musicians!This book is one of the all time classics in musical literature.