Jazz Guitar Comping: Raising Your Chord Awareness Paperback – April 3, 2017

Jazz Guitar Comping by Andrew Green is the newest volume in what is now a trilogy of great worth on the art of playing jazz guitar. This is an approach to help one learn how to comp musically in a small group setting. Andrew Green organizes the material in ways that are easy to understand and visualize. Every concept he puts forth is illustrated by a track on the accompanying CD and the quality of the recording and the content (great playing) are first rate. The four studies with analysis that finish the book are amazing not only because they are played by some really great players who work their art every day in New York and all over the world, but also because Andrew can write about what's going on in the group measure by measure and give us real insight into the spontaneous creation that is essential to jazz. This book is very much about playing jazz today, a time in which guitar is often the only chord instrument in the ensemble. It also is not an academic approach but rather a look at how a practicing professional musician with spirit and imagination approaches his role in the band. There's lots of good material here - highly reccomend!

This is the third book I've purchased by Andrew Green. I'm a big fan of how he presents information. 'Jazz Guitar Comping', like his other books makes learning simple. What I find so attractive about all of these books is that instead of getting an overwhelming amount of information, I get a simple and concise explanation. This simple explanation can then be applied to my own explorations of comping, soloing, technique, etc.. I like this format much better than books I've acquired in the past that immediately give me, let's say, 300 chords to learn and leave it at that without much of a learning system.'Jazz Guitar Comping' not only presents information I've seen before in much simpler terms, but also has some great ideas that are new to me. The multi-use voicings chapter, much like the multiple uses of structures in 'Jazz Guitar Structures', is wonderfully informative.I'm a teacher so I'm familiar with a number of learnign styles. This book seems to work well for those with a self-driven, concept-based learning style. It's very good about explaning concepts and principles rather than relying on memorization. These concepts allow for experimentation and trial by the student. This is a learning method that yields great results because of all of the application.Thank you Andrew Green for another good guitar book.

I recently reviewed All Blues For Jazz Guitar, and noted I would also review this book. Where All Blues is very accessible as a next step from say standard blues (rock/Chicago style, etc.). This book is NOT for the faint of heart. As one other review noted, NO TAB, thus if one struggles with reading notes on staff this may not be for you. In addition having a strong handle on music theory is also pretty important.I find the book very well organized with the final sections hitting (1) application of concepts in standard type tunes then (2) ending off with modern changes. One final comment - this book is a journey so will require some serous effort. My approach has been to jump around and work in ideas with tunes I am currently playing.

Plenty of voicing ideas, nice introduction to various comping techniques (harmonized scales, two notes, passing chords etc) No tab, but that actually helps since you have to figure out the fingerings and that gives a deeper understanding of the chords.Four stars and not five, because many voicings are very hard, right from the beginning. It would be nice to mark them as 'advanced' to avoid wasting time trying to play them on the first read.

I recently joined a college jazz band where- in addition to playing the occasional solo and "time" a la Freddie Green- I was required to "comp." So, I did what I always do: I bought a stack of books and started reading them. Some of the books have sections on comping in them and some are devoted to the subject entirely, but what I prefer about Andrew Green's "Jazz Guitar Comping" is that he gets to authentic comping almost immediately whereas the other books take a long time in warming to the subject. The section on multi-use voicings alone is worth the price of the book. I see some reviews here that are less-than-enthusiastic, and I suspect it's because (1) they are unfamiliar with staff notation, (2) have not listened to a lot of jazz, or (3) do not know what to do if a chord that's presented is too big a reach to play. I have all of Green's books, and they presume you can already play well and read music. For myself, I wasn't looking for a systematic book on chord construction- I was looking for a practical guide to comping that I could put to use RIGHT NOW. Oh, and the "stretchy" chords? I don't play 'em either- I take out a note, or I substitute another voicing.

A side benefit of this book is the fact that you're forced to read multiple notes to form chords and the result for me has been an almost immediate increase in my music reading ability in terms of note awareness on the neck. In addition to the "reading exercise", the dissonant chords described are really wonderful and my ability to stretch my left hand has really increased.I find myself getting up at 4AM to work with this comping book. My only problem is loss of sleep as I have a hard time walking away from Mr. Green's book.

This book is one of the best I have seen on the subject of the use of "jazz" chords,or harmony as it relates to a modern or contemporary sound.this book is not a good book for beginners though the book is very clear in that he points out that in modern jazz there is not a lot of different chords or harmonies used therefore a good handle ontheory and chord substitution is very important or the book may be over ones head.Still it is a Excellent book andis worth having a copy.