Education In Jazz

Mark Levine Jazz Theory Book

I would recommend the Jazz Theory book by Mark Levine as a comprehensive encyclopedia spelling out jazz theory as an essential and useful tool to anyone looking to learning to play jazz.

The book focuses on piano harmony, but can also be applied to other instruments and is a fantastic and thorough book to learn from.

I used it myself whilst at college and would say it is something of an industry standard.

Jamey Aebersold Play-a-longs

There are over one-hundred issues of Jamey's famous play-a-long books, which include lessons in jazz theory and selections of jazz standards to play, both from written music and CDs with rhythm-section recordings of each track.  Every jazz musician I know has used one during their progession as an easy-to-access tool to aid improvising at times when real-life musicians cannot be accessed.

These are an industry standard across the world and can be found easily on Amazon.co.uk.