Hal Leonard Guitar Method: Jazz Guitar (Hal Leonard Guitar Method (Songbooks)) Review

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Hal Leonard Guitar Method: Jazz Guitar (Hal Leonard Guitar Method (Songbooks)) ReviewThe book seems to attempt to present everything in 80 pages.
To illustrate, on the 8 first pages on chords, 80 different chords are presented (all with the same root, C). The title of the ninth page is "Other common chords".
Sure, these are all chords that are used in jazz, but the challenge is to get so familiar with different chords that changes are almost second nature, and then I -for one- need the information presented in smaller chuncks and some excercises to internalize the information. Within the 8 pages there are 4 pages of chord progression that you may play to use the different chords. But even playing through them 10 or 20 times is not sufficient to learn 80 chords. (The chord chart is provided for each chord, so you do not need to remember any chord to play the progressions, which also slows the learning.) Moreover, there is no explanation of how each chord is derived from more basic forms, these are simply 80 independent objects to remember.
All these chord progression is played on the accompanying CD, and with a definitely jazz-comp feel. However, while the book indicate an even strumming, four beat per measure, the actual playing in the CD is a syncopated rythm. Moreover, the bass is more prominent in the sound than the guitar, so it is hard to pick up the rythm used on the CD. The guitar is not isolated in one of the channel, so it is impossible to enhance it. This is a larger problem later, where the ensamble is larger with a sax, a piano, bass and drums. The guitar comp is very hard to isolate, to figure out what is going on.
When it comes to improvisation the picture is the same. While other beginning books sticks to the major scale for a long time, the book jumps right ahead to harmonic minor, melodiv minor, diminised and whole tone scales. You are told that over the dominant chord you may use the mixolydian, he Prygian dominant, Lydian dominant, Super locrian, Dominant diminished, Whole tone or mixolydian scale. All this information is given before the first example of a solo is presented. And when the first solo is presented there is no analysis of it. Presumably there is no need to, all the information is already presented.
If you already know a lot about jazz guitar, but need a short summary; a place to look up jazz-chord, fingerings of the different scales, brief review of which scales to use on which chords etc. This may be the book for you, hence the two stars. This also applies to those who have tons of book but lack one that summarizes it all. But as an instructional book for those who want to learn jazz guitar however, I would not recommend this one.Hal Leonard Guitar Method: Jazz Guitar (Hal Leonard Guitar Method (Songbooks)) Overview

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