Pianodao Music Library
Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
The Phillip Keveren Series remains one of Hal Leonard’s notably popular successes, bursting at the seams with his collections of jazz and popular piano arrangements as well as original and fresh educational music.
The latest addition to the series is Jazz Preludes for Piano, which offers:
“15 concise preludes designed to introduce a traditional pianist to the spices that season the language of jazz.”
The book is suitable for late intermediate players, around UK Grades 5-6, and delivers an enjoyable introduction to playing in a variety of jazz styles, all cunningly embedded in attractive new pieces that leave the player wanting more!
So if you (or a student you teach) have an interest in developing a more instinctive grasp of jazz grooves and repertoire, this publication is very much aimed in your direction. Let’s find out more about it…
Introducing the publication
Here’s Keveren’s own promotional video, which gives us an idea about the resource itself and the quality of the music within:
The book has an eye-catching cover, which appears on gloss card, and inside there are 40 pages printed on white paper. In the Preface, Keveren tells us,
“Playing repertoire composed in the jazz idiom is fundamental to the process of developing a facility in jazz. Getting the unique chords, refined voicing, and idiomatic rhythms “in the fingers” builds the mind’s reference library of essential elements.”
This is a neatly stated point, based on a profound understanding of piano teaching, and could equally be applied to any style of playing (which is of course why aspiring pianists should be properly and enthusiastically introduced to a wide variety of genres, including classical, as early as possible in their learning journey).
Keveren goes on to supply three pages of Performance Notes, with a short snippet of advice to support each of the fifteen preludes that follow. Though often no more than a sentence these are well worth paying attention to, and in a few cases could send teacher and learner down a rabbit hole of discovery.
Here’s a sample page from the publisher’s site:
As you can see, these tips sometimes suggest classic jazz tracks for listening, and which have inspired Keveren’s own grooves and pieces. In the Third Prelude, for example, the 5/4 piece pays homage to Dave Brubeck’s famous Take Five; listening to the original will undoubtedly help the player make sense of the timing.
Keveren’s fifteen jazz preludes
The preludes which follow introduce a wide variety of mainstream jazz styles, including ballads, boogie, fusion, swing and Latin grooves.
The Preludes generally have a fairly traditional American jazz vibe, as opposed to the more cosmopolitan, contemporary stylings found in the writing of Nikki Iles and others here in the UK scene. Some are self-consciously pastiches, which chimes with the educational aims of the author, but all fifteen are enjoyable pieces in their own right, and rewarding to play.
The scores are presented with generously sized notation, are well spaced, and fingering suggestions are included throughout (although in some pieces I think players might have welcomed more detailed advice to support their development of intuitive jazz vamping).
In most of the pieces, jazz chord notation included in addition to and above the fully realised piano score:
For those interested in playing from lead sheets this is a useful addition, although in many cases the harmonic language is quite advanced (see the example above), so these aren’t for beginners: prior understanding and jazz chord knowledge is essential.
Closing thoughts
I have previously recommended a number of Phillip Keveren’s books, and the piano players who learn with me seem to consistently love them. I am sure that his brilliant Jazz Preludes for Piano will be equally well received.
The collection provides an excellent launch pad for further exploration of the jazz canon, and Hal Leonard’s Phillip Keveren Series (which you can browse on Sheet Music Plus here) of course includes several suitable collections of standards and more challenging material which eager players can go on to explore.
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