Conventional Wisdom would question why anyone would spend countless thousands of dollars to learn to play a form of music where you might make a hundred bucks or so for four grueling sets of baring your soul to unappreciative audiences. Thank goodness Jazz musicians tend to be a little short on conventional wisdom, and generations of these characters are willing to pay for a pay scale which doesn't seem to keep up with inflation.
Means of learning to play Jazz range from being born gifted to Graduate programs where students transpose Coltrane solos and spend countless hours justifying chord/scale relationships. There are no shortage of resources for players of every level who wish to learn more of the craft. While there is no substitute for embarrassing yourself in front of your peers and betters at Jam sessions, here a few suggestions for the more theoretical aspects of the art:
Resources:
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- Larry McKenna's Jazz Improv Site - Getting better all the time !!!
- Jazz Journeys Educational Institute (Philadelphia)
- Jazz Improvisation (U. of Wisconsin)
- Visual Jazz Publications (lots of good freebies here)
- Jazzbeat.org (self-published materials)
- Practice Corner - Saxmania's practice resources
- Changes 98 - A Massive encyclopedia of chord/scale relationships. Learn your bebop scales !!!
- Jazclass
- 8-Tone Quarto-Modes Concept
- EJMA - Excellent transciptions by Charles Schneider et Cie. (In French, but the music is Universal)
- Sher Publishers (legal Fake Books etc.)