First steps in jazz

With his already successfully published works for flute and clarinet Easy Jazz Studies for Alto Recorder Tilmann Dehnhard fills a gap in the recorder repertoire. His studies are intended to provide exemplary answers to the question of how to play beautiful melodies over familiar chord progressions and articulate them in a style that makes them "groove". The preface introduces jazz notation, explains the difference between straight and swinging eights and off-beat articulation, and explains gracenotes and other special features and conventions common in jazz.

The ten original compositions with a difficulty level of 3-4, one of which has an "easy version", then introduce the various jazz styles. Some of them are marked with the previously learned articulations and have been recorded by Tobias Reisige (recorder), Kai Brückner (guitar) and Marc Muellbauer (double bass) in an exemplary, if somewhat one-dimensional way. The accompanying CD offers full and play-along versions of the pieces in various practice tempos.

It would have been desirable to have some help on how recorder players can improvise or compose their own melodies, especially as some of the pieces presented here are based on the chord progressions of well-known jazz standards such as Georgia on My Mind or Summertime based. As an introduction to the world of jazz, however, the variously designed studies work very well and can provide the starting point for your own future improvisations by means of a play-along version.

Tilmann Dehnhard: Easy Jazz Studies, 10 easy compositions for alto recorder as an introduction to jazz, UE 37222, with CD, € 16.95, Universal Edition, Vienna