About a year ago Andy Narell approached me and asked if I was going to do anymore jazz songbooks. I hadn't planned on it but I love Andy's music and so I said, "Sure, why not?" So I started asking other great composers and the results can be seen at https://www.shermusic.com/jazz-songbook-series-2.php. One of the great moments in this process was when a package arrived from Benny Golson's publisher with copies of his original lead sheets, all yellowed and looking just like lead sheets used to look when I first started playing music 50+ years ago. It was like Christmas in February! And Benny's tunes, in particular, have been a ball to play with my various musical compatriots. Then I asked Enrico Pieranunzi and he was delighted to have a songbook of his compositions too. The same with Denny Zeitlin, Randy Brecker, Steve Khan, Larry Dunlap, Barry Finnerty and Doug Morton. I'm especially happy to put out The Dave Tull Songbook because Dave is the most soulful and also the funniest singer/songwriter in jazz, to my professional ears. Check out the sample songs on his webpage and I bet you'll agree. My great appreciation goes out to Matt Heister for helping with the graphics on this project and also my webmaster, Bob Afifi, who tirelessly did all the 'behind the scenes' work to get these songbooks up and running.
I just turned 75 and one would think that I should be at Shady Acres contemplating nature, but projects keep coming to me and I feel obligated to keep doing my part in promoting good music. Like Lot in the Bible, I think the Good Lord is only letting this show go on because, at any point, there are ten good tunes being played on the planet. So keep the music flowing!
Our friend and colleague, the great Mark Levine, passed away on Thursday, January 27, 2022 at the age of 83. May
he rest in Peace and may all the thousands of people whose lives have
been uplifted by his music and his unparalleled books say a
word of thanks to this Giant of Jazz as he enters the Big Band in the
Sky. We'll miss him...
Please leave your condolences or reminiscences here. We'd love to hear from you all - Chuck Sher
Sher Music fans - We had some trouble with our blog a year or so ago and stopped posting but that seems to have been resolved now so let me catch you up on the new books we've put out since then.
1. "Syncopation Companion" by Bryan Bowman - Bryan is a Bay Area drummer and bandleader and he approached me in 2020 to see if I wanted to publish his book, which expands the possibilities of Ted Reed's classic "Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer." I'll refer you to its webpage for more detail, including a glowing endorsement from Peter Erskine - https://www.shermusic.com/9780997661781.php. All I want to add is that I've had the great pleasure of playing with Bryan on a bunch of COVID-safe outdoor gigs here in Petaluma and he is always swinging - so his method works! And a super-nice guy to boot!
2. "Drum Chart Supplement for the Real Easy Book 1" by Alan Hall - Another great drummer and former Bay Area musician, Alan Hall wrote drum charts for every song in the first Real Easy Book in this cool publication. In addition, there is very cogent instruction for beginning drummers on how to read drum notation, basic styles of contemporary drumming and advice on how to be a good team player. The webpage is here - https://www.shermusic.com/9780991077397.php, including videos of Alan performing each chart in both real time and slowed down.
3. "Contemporary Latin Jazz Guitar" by Neff Irizarry - Neff is a talented Finnish guitarist who is included in The European Real Book. He sent me a manscript last year on Latin jazz guitar playing that was super informative and well-organized, going from the basic rhythms of Afro-Cuban music and how they relate to playing guitar in a Latin rhythm section, all the way up to a 6-page transcription of a great Steve Khan solo! There are about 100 shorter transcriptions of guitarists from all eras of Latin music with analysis of why they sound as good as they do. A really well-done and comprehensive book that we are proud to publish - https://www.shermusic.com/9780997661798.php. (Comes with multiple videos of Neff demonstrating many of the exercises.)
4. "The Jazz Saxophone Book" by Tim Armacost - Tim is a leading voice in the New York jazz scene and quite a player. He approached me with an idea for a book on melodic soloing and I said, "Sure, but how about expanding it to include everything a person would need to be an accomplish sax player, like Mark Levine did in his "The Jazz Piano Book." He took on that challenge and the result is magnificent - a super helpful book for any improviser, really. Check it out at https://www.shermusic.com/9780991077380.php. Endorsed by Jerry Bergonzi, Bob Mintzer, George Garzone, Bob Sheppard, Jamey Aebersold, Steve Wilson, Walt Weiskopf, and his bandmate David Berkman.
Coming up - a) "Jazz Scores and Analysis, Vol.2: Strings and Things" by Rick Lawn and b) more great "Jazz Songbooks" from people like Andy Narell, Randy Brecker, Denny Zeitlin, Steve Khan, Duke Pearson, etc. Be well, stay safe and keep it swinging! - Chuck
Instruction from the masters and the icons of jazz is one
genre of literature that always has an eager audience. Whether it’s
learning how to improvise, a new take on well-loved chestnuts or how to
master the key changes, musicians need their fingers and their ears to
be in tip-top shape.
How does a music publisher today keep up with what
professional musicians and students hanker for as they develop their
art? Chuck Sher of Sher Music Company has some answers.
When did you start the business and why?
I started Sher Music Co. in 1979 because I got serious tendonitis and
couldn’t play bass for over a year. During that downtime, I collected
all the notes I had taken while teaching and put them together to create
my first book, “The Improvisor’s Bass Method.” It was very
well-received and at that point, I officially became a music book
publisher. Totally accidental (and yet foreordained in some way, I
feel).
I still consider myself a musician first and a publisher second. This
fact has been the bedrock of our “mission statement” here at Sher Music
Co., that our books are created by musicians, for musicians, and are
designed to be the best possible books on their given subject. Our
endorsements from dozens and dozens of the best jazz musicians ever –
including Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Ron Carter, Maria
Schneider, Esperanza Spalding, etc. – corroborate that claim.
How has your focus on books changed through the years if at all; instruction and technique, composition, theory, history, etc.?
From the beginning, we published both fake books and instructional
books. But now we are only publishing method books for the most part. In
terms of content, the major change happened in the ’90s because I got
bitten by the Latin music bug and so we published over a dozen books on
that fascinating music, including the only professional-level collection
of Latin music compositions, “The Latin Real Book.”
Talk about fake books. What trends have you seen here?
We started out publishing big fake books but it has been harder to
justify the expense of doing that when people can get any song they want
either for a few dollars or free (i.e. illegally) online. I find this
very sad because the charts in our fake books can help create more
beautiful music than the “white bread” charts available in most of the
other fake books or lead sheets out there. In addition, our fake books
are historically accurate. For just one of hundreds of examples, see
Miles’ classic arrangement of “‘Round Midnight” in the Standards Real Book,
something that is not available anywhere else. I’ve been blessed with
having two of the world’s greatest music transcribers work for us: Sky
Evergreen, who passed away in the ’90s, and since then, Larry Dunlap. I
couldn’t have put out our fake books without them and the jazz world
owes them both a big debt of gratitude. In any case, at this point the
only charts we are publishing are in our “Jazz Songbook” series of
digital-only books at www.shermusic.com, featuring one composer at a time, e.g. Kenny Barron, Alan Pasqua, Steve Swallow, etc.
What have you learned about your consumer, the musician or
hobbyist or just music lover, through the years in what they want to
learn?
I’m not sure what they want to learn has changed, only how they have
grown up getting that knowledge. The obvious thing is that one can learn
“licks,” technique, etc. on any subject on YouTube. I don’t discount
the immediate value of that, but there’s a depth of knowledge that one
can only get from a well-thought-out book. Superficial knowledge might
very well result in superficial playing, wouldn’t you think?
What goes into your decision of whether or not to carry a
book? Do you offer editing and marketing to authors? Talk about the
process of acquiring a title and what you do to publish it.
I am the publisher of all the books carried at shermusic.com
and I have also written or co-written a half-dozen of those books
myself. My decision to publish a book is almost always based on what I
consider to be its long-term musical value. I am a good editor and I
have had some input in most of our method books as well as selecting
almost all the songs in our fake books. I also do all the marketing from
here (with invaluable assistance from my webmaster, Bob Afifi), but
some of our authors are also helping with the social media aspect of
getting their books out into the world.
The authors of most of my instructional books sent me their
manuscripts initially and are glad to have the “Sher Music Seal of
Approval” on their work. Definitely a mutually beneficial relationship.
They also get paid more than the standard royalties, another fact of
which I am proud.
The process of publishing a book is a long one, too much to go into a
lot of detail here. But first I often help the author get their ideas
into presentable form, both graphically and/or content-wise. Once that
is done, I take the manuscript, have it proofread (often by several
people whose opinions I value), then re-do the layout as a result, then
send it to our printer and proofread it again before it goes to press.
Finally, we do a digital PDF version, which requires more graphics
expertise, then the book is ready to be released. Publicity is the next
step and that is an expensive and ever-evolving task, as the media world
keeps changing. Altogether, in order to be born, each book requires a
lot of blood, sweat, tears, persistence and love for the music, and I am
both proud and honored to have put out the most highly-respected
collection of jazz and Latin music books on the market.
How do authors learn about you and how do music lovers/buyers learn about you?
Sher Music Co. has been an established jazz and then Latin music book
publisher for over 40 years, so our reputation precedes us. How to get
the attention of the younger generation of musicians is a challenge and
we learn more about that with every book. We are now reaching out to
bloggers and podcasters, as well as Facebook and the traditional print
media.
Are you a musician, and if so, what do you play?
I’ve played bass since the ’60s. First upright bass and then electric
bass after I recovered from tendonitis, with the help of DMSO, by the
way (but do not use it without researching the safety precautions
necessary). I toured with jazz vocalist Jon Hendricks and his family for
a year and a half in the ’70s. That was a ball, getting to play with
all the musicians that would come and sit in with Jon: Al Jarreau, Joe
Williams, George Duke, Benny Carter, etc. Then I played for years with
the late bebop saxophonist Vince Wallace and drummer Michael Aragon, as
well as a hundred other players here in the Bay Area over the years.
This past year I organized and fronted a weekly COVID-safe outdoor
series of concerts here in Petaluma, CA with the best Bay Area musicians
I could find like Art Khu, Randy Vincent, Kendrick Freeman, Bryan
Bowman, Michael Aragon, Doug Morton, Bob Afifi, Ken Cook, etc. What a
ball that was, and will be again once the weather permits.
What words of encouragement would you give to the novice who is overwhelmed with all the literature available?
I would say pick educational material that has stood the test of
time, like Mark Levine’s “The Jazz Theory Book” or look for books that
have been endorsed by great musicians, like virtually all Sher Music
books have been. I also have a free tutorial of ideas for learning to
solo on standard tunes on our home page. Practicing can be a tremendous
amount of fun, so I would say keep at it, step-by-step, and enjoy the
process of watching yourself become a more accomplished musician.
Talk about Tim’s new book and why you have a connection with it?
Tim Armacost is the saxophone player in the New York Standards
Quartet, led by another author of ours, NY pianist David Berkman. They
put out a series of records that are state-of-the-art post-bop, so I was
very familiar with Tim’s playing. I remember hearing him play on their
arrangement of “Soul Eyes” and thinking, “That is an almost perfect
example of a great contemporary jazz solo.” (At my suggestion, a
transcription of that solo can be found at the end of Tim’s “The Jazz
Saxophone Book.”) Anyway, Tim approached me with a proposal to write a
book on creating melodic solos. My response was, “Sure, but how about
expanding it to cover everything a saxophonist needs to know to be an
accomplished jazz player, like Mark Levine did with his “Jazz Piano
Book”? Tim took up the challenge and created a masterpiece, I believe –
endorsed by Jerry Bergonzi, Bob Minzter, Bob Sheppard, George Garzone,
etc. You can buy it on our website at https://www.shermusic.com/9780991077380.php.
Other comments?
As the world gets crazier by the day, it seems, there are only a few
things that give me solace and inspiration to have my life be a net plus
for the world. One of them is love, specifically for my wife Sueann,
our two kids, and my close friends. And the other is the inexhaustible
beauty of music. Any universe that could end up with Bill Evans and John
Coltrane has to have been done with Purpose and Meaning behind it,
because it is too cool to be an accident, know what I mean? I’ve
actually written some decent poems, I believe, and paired them with
great recorded music that expresses these sentiments better than I can
do in prose. You can find those (no charge) at https://www.shermusic.com/inner-world-books/from-the-inner-world/index.html. Also check out a related CD project on our website, “Poetry+Jazz: A Magical Marriage.” Free samples are available at https://www.shermusic.com/1883217822.php.
High art, if you ask me. Finally, I have a jazz show on KRCB – public
radio here in Sonoma Co. – on the first Saturday of each month from 7 to
11 pm. And above all else, keep it swinging!
Photos courtesy of/with permission from Chuck Sher.
In my role as a pubic radio jazz host (KRCB-FM, the first Saturday of each month, 7-11 pm Pacific time), I scour the internet for hip new jazz releases. A few years ago I ran into one of the best CDs I've heard of cutting-edge jazz from Europe entitled, "Evocation" by a one-time ensemble called Generations Unit 2012. A great record. So when the saxophonist on that CD, Lukas Gabric, got in touch and said he had written a book on rhythm changes that he wanted us to publish, I was happy to take a look. Lukas is a saxophone instructor for the Juillard School's MAP program and a great player in his own right, so that's a good foundation, I thought. The manuscript went back and forth between us a half dozen times and the end result is the most comprehensive book ever published on the different approaches one could take to get a handle on this slippery song form. Chuck says, check it out. https://www.shermusic.com/9780997661767.php
Finally, I would like to wish all of us on this beleaguered planet the best of luck getting though the pandemic and rebuilding a sense of normalcy, which has been sorely tested here in the US these last four years. The planet needs us - who else is going to play "Confirmation"? Not the chipmunks.
Listening to Alan Pasqua play at the JEN convention this last January (that seems like a lifetime ago!), the idea came to me, "Alan's music is so beautiful. I should put out a book of his best tunes." Then, bingo!, ten months later we are releasing not only 20 of Alan's best songs but similar books for Tom Harrell, Carla Bley, Kenny Barron, Ralph Towner, Steve Swallow, Kenny Werner, Horace Silver, Oscar Hernandez (Ruben Blades musical director for many years) and Wayne Wallace (also a superb Latin Jazz composer and arranger).
Unlike our earlier fake books, these charts are all direct from the composers' own lead sheets (except for Horace Silver, no longer living). This gives the books some real historical interest, in addition to just being able to play these great pieces of jazz writing. In some cases, the charts had to be re-copied for legibility reasons, but the content is the same.
Of course, a project of this magnitude required many hands to bring it to fruition. My deep thanks to Sueann Bettison Sher, Annalisa Sher and Linda Larsen for the beautiful cover art work; Bob Afifi, my webmaster, for putting all the pieces together; Larry Dunlap for his great editing and music engraving skills; Attila Nagy and Chris Goodmiller for the additional graphics work; and, last but not least, all the composers for allowing me the privilege of presenting their beautiful compositions to musicians world-wide. Thanks to one and all---and also to you, Sher Music supporters, for being the essential last link in the chain. Be well, stay safe and enjoy these labors of love! - Chuck Sher
We have just released Jeb Patton's third book for Sher Music, "Introduction to Jazz Piano: A Deep Dive." I asked Jeb if he thought he could write a book that explains all the things a person would need to know in order to successfully use Mark Levine's "The Jazz Piano Book." What he came up with was quite different than I expected. Instead of a simpler version of Mark's book, Jeb has created a deep tutorial on how to immerse yourself in the jazz language so that you come out being a fully functional jazz pianist. This book is not designed for the casual hobbyist but rather for someone who is willing to put in some quality time in order to become a real jazz player. The initial response to its release indicates that, indeed, people are ready and willing to do just that. In these crazy times, more and better music is a worthy goal, I believe and I think Jeb's book will help people do just that. Chuck says check it out - https://www.shermusic.com/9780997661750.php - and stay safe out there!
Folks
- I have amassed a wonderful jazz CD collection over the years and am
happy to share it with all music lovers the first Saturday of each
month, (including this Saturday, June 6th) from 7 pm to 11 pm (Pacific
time) on KRCB-FM---public radio for Sonoma Co.
To listen, go to https://norcalpublicmedia.org/radio/radio and scroll down to "Live Stream."
For
the next two or three months, I'll be playing the cream of the crop,
the "desert island" tracks from my collection. Don't miss it and stay safe! - Chuck<
While sheltering-in-place during the Covid-19 pandemic, I discovered a very useful process to help with soloing on standard tunes. The following outline need not be applied strictly over and over, but try doing it step-by-step for a song or two and see what seems useful to you.
A - LEARNING THE MELODY 1. Play the melody multiple times. Play it all over the range of your instrument until you are able to change octaves in the middle of the melody at will. 2. Do the same thing but this time embellish the melody with passing notes and grace notes, and also freely interpret the rhythms so that the melody sounds like you might have just made it up on the spot. 3. Play pieces of the melody and then improvise for a bar or two, back and forth. Ultimately, you should be able to quote the melody at any point in the middle of a solo chorus of the song. For bassists, try playing a walking line that contains a liberal number of melody notes in it. 4. Try singing along with #2 and #3 above and make each succeeding chorus more solo-like than the last one until you are playing a solo that is directly derived from the melody but is not necessarily the melody notes at all.
B - LEARNING THE HARMONY 1. Play pieces of the arpeggios of the chords of the song using the full range of your instrument. No set number of bars on each chord here—just play until you are comfortable with each one. 2. Play the chords in time, with the same number of bars/beats for each chord as indicated in the chart. Try to use chord notes only, as much as you can. For this exercise, play the chord notes with soloistic phrasing, not just running arpeggios. Do this until you have memorized the chord sequence and can play through it without looking at the lead sheet. 3. This time add scalar and chromatic passing notes to connect chord notes (i.e., think of the chord but play anything you hear). Do this until the chord sequence has been internalized and you can sense the next chord before it comes up. This will give your lines a feeling of forward motion because you will be heading for the following chord even as you are playing on the current one. 4. Do #1-3 here but using the appropriate scales that best fit each chord. Mark Levine’s “The Jazz Theory Book” is the standard work on that subject. Make sure you know what scale notes change as you go from chord to chord.
C - USING THE MELODY’S PHRASES TO CREATE YOUR SOLOS Think of (or sing) the melody’s phrases to yourself while you are soloing, but use any notes, not just the notes of the melody. Thinking in phrases will help you avoid sounding like you are just ‘wiggling your fingers.’ Use either rests or longer-held notes to separate phrases. Of course, if you really hear a line that extends through two phrases, for example, then by all means go ahead and play it. Here are some suggestions for soloing in phrases. 1. Start on the melody notes at the beginning of each bar, then play whatever you hear after that. This will bring more immediate results than any other approach in this tutorial, so don’t skip it! 2. Start on any chord note at the beginning of each bar, then play whatever you hear on the way to the next down beat. For ballads that often have two chords per bar, also try doing this on two chords per bar, not just the first one. 3. Start each bar on a step-wise (including half-steps) sequence of ‘target’ notes. Work this out in advance if you want or just improvise these as you go.
4. Start each phrase on any note that you hear, but do keep the melody’s phrases in mind as you go through the song. This was the genesis of this tutorial and remains its core exercise, to be done if nothing else. 5. It’s fun to play a string of short phrases that all are variations of each other. By doing this, you might leave the melody’s phrasing for a while but that’s fine as long as you know where you are in the tune. 6. Sing a phrase to yourself and then try to play it on your instrument. Go through the tune this way. This is great ear training and worth the time you spend on it, even if it’s not as much fun as playing your heart out. 7. Play your heart out.
D - INTERNALIZE THE SONG 1. Spend some time consciously integrating the melody and the chords so that you know how the two fit together at every point in the song. Start by seeing what degree of the chord each melody note is. Play embellished versions of the melody with this in mind. 2. Give yourself different parameters to work within. For example: - try playing through the song using a minimum number of notes while still maintaining a coherent line through the changes. - try repeating a rhythmic pattern multiple times before switching to a new one as you go through the song. If any given rhythmic figure presents a technical challenge for you, then try leaving the tune for a bit and taking the rhythmic figure up and down the key of the song until it is smooth and relaxed. - try feeling the song in 2 (half notes) as opposed to 4. This will change the kind of lines you play - interesting! Make up more things like this of your own. 3. Spend some time analyzing the structure of the song. For almost all standards, you can break the song up into four-bar sections—so treat each one as an independent unit in which you understand the chord movements and can therefore look at it as a single piece of information (e.g. II-V-I-VI). For many songs, it will be more helpful to look at it in two-bar phrases instead of four-bar ones—do whatever aids you the most in memorizing it. Importantly, the chords at the beginning of each four-bar or two-bar phrase create their own sequence that is like the signature of that tune, so make sure you have that ingrained in your mind. 4. Feel free to cycle any given number of bars over and over until it is ‘yours.’ Anything from two chords up to eight-bar sections of the tune can be cycled with great benefit to your ability to internalize them. 5. By using these different ways of learning a tune, at the end of this process you should be able to intuitively know where you are in the song without thinking too much about it—real freedom! 6. Finally, let it be noted that this process is not so much about self-expression as it is expressing the inherent beauty of the song. As the late Lee Konitz once said, “A good solo doesn’t care who played it.” Enjoy!
