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Real name: scott mcclure
Birthday: 12/15/1950
Location: portland, oregon
Occupation: computer dept manager
Information: i’m another old guy (54) and a complete amateur. about 33 years ago (lord!) when i got out of the service i was beginning to develop an interest in, maybe a passion for, jazz. i also had some gi bill and nothing else very fun to do so i became, for a couple of years, a music student and very bad trumpet player at a cc that had a great jazz program (lcc, eugene, or). i looked at some really good musicians around me and decided a) i’d be lucky to ever be anywhere near that good and, b) i wanted more money than they had. given that, i got myself a career in computers.
not a bad decision all in all but i never lost my passion. i didn’t play anything for 20 years or so but took in lots of great live music and continued to feed the beast in other ways. shortly after a divorce the family upright grand came to live with me. now, back in the school days i’d learned a basic ii-v-i on the keyboard so i could entertain myself pretty well. after a year or two that gets old however so i talked a local (portland, or) keyboard master (eddie wied) into giving me some lessons. what fun! now i could sort of play a few songs. well, another marriage and several job changes consumed the next 15 years or so. i only worked with eddie for a year and life interrupted. a year ago we had the piano moved from the living room to the family room – i thought i might play a bit more.
yeah, i did! about 2 hours a day for the last year with good weekends adding 10 or 12 hours. a few months ago someone suggested i’d best get a teacher sooner rather than later so i contacted one of my local favorites and began taking lessons from randy porter. i am very lucky to have someone like this living close by, let me tell you! what fun!
my goals are modest. first, i’d like to be able to easily get through a tune without dropping a beat or losing the form. that would be a good start. someday i dream of playing with people – just for the joy of it. i think it will happen but sometimes it’s sure hard to understand how.
Volume 1 of this educational jazz piano book contains 15 jazz piano exercises, tricks, and other interesting jazz piano techniques, voicings, grooves, and ideas Scot Ranney enjoys playing.
Volume 2 has 14 jazz piano exercises and tricks of the trade, and quite a bit of it is Calypso jazz piano related material, including some Monty Alexander and Michel Camilo style grooves. Jazz piano education is through the ears, but books like this can help.
Volume 3 contains 12 jazz piano exercises and explorations by the acclaimed jazz piano educator, pianist, author, and recording artist Tim Richards.
Tim wrote the well known "Exploring Jazz Piano" and "Improvising Blues Piano" books and has several others to his name.
Volume 4 is by Jeff Brent, a jazz pianist, composer, teacher, and author of "Modalogy" and other acclaimed jazz theory and education books. In this book Jeff shares detailed analysis of transcriptions of live performances. He covers everything from the shape of the songs to the tricks and licks he uses in improvised lines to the ideas behind his lush chord voicings.
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