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Hi everyone,

I teach a yamaha keyborad course and I have a pupil who is working for his grade 5. He is very good at picking stuff up and has a great enjoyment for jazz pieces.

I can't seem to find a board which do graded jazz exams other than ABRSM but they only go up to grade 5. But does Jazz piano need to be graded or is it more to do with improvisation?

I have tried to get this lad onto classical pieces (as the course I teach is predominantly popular music) but he really isn't interested in it.

I'm not sure what route to take with him. He definatly wants to continue with the course but I just feels he needs some jazz supplementation. He is quite difficult to talk to because he is very queit and doesn't really express an opinion which is fustrating.

Can anyone suggest some pieces i could give him? and if maybe I should suggest to his dad to go and see a specialised jazz teacher??

Any teaching suggestions and opinions would be great..thank you!

Do you mean that this student is preparing for the ABRSM Grade 5 Jazz Piano exam? Or that he is preparing for a standard Grade 5 exam?

It's a grade 5 keyboard exam which is examined by Trinity. But the exam does contain piano style pieces.

Well I would suggest that you look at the student working through say Grade 3 in the ABRSM Jazz Piano syllabus (even if you don't intend for your student to sit the exam) as the ABRSM Jazz material is technically way more advanced than the Grade number would have you believe!!!

But composers who write in that jazz style at about that level include Manfred Schmitz, Gerard Hengeveld, Mike Cornick, Mike Schoemehl, and Luis Zett. And there are also some great collections of arrangements too - Wise Publications did a series called "Unforgettable" which had various twentieth century popular genres arranged into lovely Grade 5/6/7 standard versions. And there are loads of collections of that ilk....

Here in Australia there is an exam program called Piano for Leisure which mostly features the jazz style contemporary compositions along with arrangements of popular songs/film themes and orchestral favourites. The New Zealand Music Examination Board has a similar syllabus called Piano for Pleasure which you can find at their website www.nzmeb.org.nz (might be more food for thought for repertoire?).

There's also an Australian composer who does the jazz style very well, Kerin Bailey. Not sure if you can access his material in the UK - try Music Exchange if your local print music shop can't help (I think they carried his music at some stage, not sure about now).

Does he really want to play "jazz" or just read jazz off of sheet music. If it's the former you may suggest a teacher who has a specialty in jazz playing (solo improvisation, working with combos, etc.). For Jazz arrangements there are many good books with arrangements by Lee Evans. Perhaps if jazz is the route he wants to take, testing tracks are not really appropriate for him?

Thanks everyone for your suggestions i'll look out some of the composers you mentioned!

Sorry Jennifer, what do you mean by testing tracks?

thanks

Diana

Graded exams....

Ooh, I should have recommended the fantastic books by John Kember as well - some of his stuff is published by Faber Music (jazz studies, pieces designed to be played alone or with others, all kinds of cool things) and Schott (I think he has a series of arrangements with them, as well as a sight reading course which is great). He has a great ear for a genuine jazz experience without the student needing to be Grade 8+ standard. Highly recommended.

I just took a quick look at some sample pages from a couple of Lee Evans books and it doesn't look like he notes the chord symbols along with the arrangement. Is that typical of his books ?

It seems very odd to study jazz arrangements without the chords, unless the student is supposed to write in the chord symbols or something.