Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Ben Crosland’s Magic Beans for elementary players was one of the very first (and remains one of the best) music books to be reviewed on Pianodao, and in that review (which you can read here) I mentioned other Beans books in the series, Cool Beans and Easy Beans, concluding:
“To summarise, the ‘Beans’ publications establish Ben Crosland as a major voice in educational composing. The whole series is outstanding, and ‘Magic Beans’ easily lives up to the very high standards set by its predecessors.”
Crosland has subsequently concentrated on developing his career composing reflective contemporary pieces in the style popularised by Ludovico Einaudi and others.
Returning with new educational publications, Crosland’s Jazz Beans! series marks a welcome reappearance of three books which were previously published as Get Set Jazz, freshly baked for the Beans series. Suitable for Easy (Grades 0-2), Intermediate (2-4), and Advanced (4-7) players respectively, let’s find out how they taste…
Get Set Jazz!
Ben Crosland’s first foray into educational composing, Get Set Jazz! started life as a set of pieces written for his own students, which grew to become a set of three books published by Spartan Press in 2009.
Crosland had been using several of the popular jazzy repertoire books for intermediate pianists available at that time, but was frustrated by a lack of focus and wanted to produce music which would offer more variety, have strong, catchy hooks, and offer learners quicker rewards for their effort.
With these goals in mind he set about writing and road-testing pieces under cover, collecting honest feedback from his students. He sought to avoid writing middle sections which lacked the appeal of the opening, and tells me that he was particularly keen to pursue what he calls a “no fat approach”: avoiding repetition, bland filler, and inconsistent quality.
Based on his awareness of the available printed resources, Crosland noted that composers and publishers present swing rhythms using a range of approaches, such as writing ordinary quavers but giving a style indicator, writing dotted rhythms, using triplets, and even compound time. For Get Set Jazz he determined to familiarise learners with all these, including a “Guide to Swing” at the start of each book.
Get Set Jazz was a well-deserved success, and Crosland soon began work on his next project, which became the first two Cool Beans books published by Musica Ferrum. And with the disappearance of Spartan Press and the lapse of copyright, it is a natural progression that all three Get Set Jazz books now join the growing Beans series.
Newly engraved, with illustrations to match the Beans vibe and an extra piece in each volume, and with the quality we have come to expect from Musica Ferrum, these books are a reminder of Crosland’s skill as an educator, and his gift for capturing jazzy piano stylings in his music.
Each book has a suitably colourful and snappy design printed on high quality card, with white pages within (in contrast with the cream paper used in the other Beans books). Notation is well engraved (if occasionally a little crowded) and helpful fingering is included across all three books.
Crosland has also supplied introductory notes for each and every piece across the series; these are essential reading and a very helpful introduction to both his musical and educational aims.
Easy Jazz Beans!
Jazz Beans! Book 1 offers ’19 easy jazz/blues pieces for solo piano’, which are:
- Ready To Go!
- Coconut Rock
- Better Believe It
- Heavy Weather
- Hand in Hand
- Can’t Stop Myself
- To The Left, To The Right
- Walz in Blue
- Two Hand Blues
- Till Tomorrow Comes
- I’ll Just Follow
- In The Mood For Some Blues
- Easy Enough?
- Crazy Drivin’
- Like Your Style
- Roundabout Rag
- Railroad Blues
- Remember The Day
- Someone To Love
Each piece here tells a miniature story, with an evocative title and illustration, while simultaneously being a compact ‘study’ in a particular groove. And these little gems certainly conjure a wide range of moods, channelling a pot-pourri of jazz, blues, boogie, rock, and ballad stylings.
Variety is very much the spice of this collection, and its particular strength. The book delivers a rapid succession of excellent quick study pieces that have instant appeal, and offers highly effective study material for tuition in schools and where lesson time is limited.
In terms of level, these are elementary pieces which range between UK Initial and Grade 2, the majority being around Grade 1 (albeit in many cases probably too short for exam use).
Intermediate Jazz Beans!
The second book, I am told, includes the first pieces that Crosland wrote when piloting his original idea. Including the latest addition, the 14 titles are:
- I Will If I Want!
- Lavender Swing
- Black Note Breakout!
- Walking On The Moon
- Lazy Day Rag
- Calm Waters
- Sailing Away my Blues
- Hey! Stop That Train
- Gotta Get Goin’ By Sundown
- I Just Can’t Be Without You
- Now That You’Ve Gone
- What You’ Done
- Midnight Freeway
- The First Time I Saw You
Fans of Easy and Cool Beans will enjoy Crosland’s familiar writing style and knack for creating idiomatic music in contemporary styles, and this book could happily serve as a bridge between those collections.
As with this composer’s best music, many of these pieces present familiar musical tropes with unexpected and imaginative twists, highlights including the amusing Walking on the Moon, slightly wayward Hey! Stop that Train! and comical, lovelorn pining of The First Time That I Saw You.
Suitable for early intermediate players around Grades 2-4, the pieces are mostly two pages long, but maintain the concision of the first book.
Advanced Jazz Beans!
There is a palpable step up in level for the final book in the series, which offers the following eleven compositions:
- Now We’re Talking!
- White Balloon
- If Only You Had Told Me
- The Ha’penny Rag
- It’s Groovy, I Guess?
- You Gotta Be Kidding?
- Better Late That Never
- The Blue Train
- The Moon, The Pearl
- The Jazz Beans Boogie
- Blue Sky Blues
These pieces are more difficult than any found in the original Beans books, making this the aspirational icing on the cake: a set of challenging but hugely enjoyable concert pieces to demonstrate the learner’s mastery of the styles introduced throughout this excellent and imaginative series.
All the Jazz Beans!
From beginner to proficient jazzer, the Jazz Beans! series offers a delicious mix of styles and catchy melodies which will surely bring much enjoyment, and inspire players of all ages (and especially teenagers) to develop their groove!
Bringing these three titles back into service as part of the Beans series is a smart and welcome move. This music is very good, and reaffirms my view that Crosland is one of the best educational composers around.
Aligning these publications with the four existing Beans titles reinvigorates the brand, establishing it as a cohesive set of musical materials to accompany a learner through several years of their development, giving them a good grounding in a range of pop, jazz and blues piano idioms.
There are many jazzy collections on the market, each competing for attention. Crosland set out to produce something a little different, and I think he has succeeded!
Jazz Beans! certainly deserve to be on the shortlist of all teachers and players looking for top class material to use alongside either their standard classical and pedagogic library, or indeed, other jazz materials.
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