Monday, March 30, 2015

Music Education Monday: Aebersold's "Jazz Handbook," plus Latin percussion classes with Dafnis Prieto

This week for "Music Education Monday," we've got a primer for aspiring jazz players that also may be of interest to non-playing fans, plus a master class in Latin percussion techniques:

* Known throughout the jazz world as a leading purveyor of jazz education materials and proprietor of summer jazz camps, saxophonist and educator Jamey Aebersold for years also has given away for free a 56-page tome called simply Jazz Handbook.

While aimed primarily at beginning and intermediate musicians, the collection of exercises, lists, short articles, and more also conceivably may be of interest to more advanced musicians, and even to fans looking for some basic "Jazz 101" type knowledge.

You can download a free copy of the Jazz Handbook in PDF format here.

* In addition to being a busy working musician, Cuban-born percussionist Dafnis Prieto also is a professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School, a frequent clinician at other colleges and universities, and a 2011 winner of a Macarthur Fellowship, aka "the genius grant." (St. Louis jazz fans also may recall Prieto from when his trio played at Jazz at the Bistro back in 2012.)

In the video windows below, you can check out two lessons from Prieto. The first is a playlist of excerpts from a master class he did a few years ago at Loyola University in New Orleans, in which he offers an overview of various Latin percussion styles and how to play them. In the second, Prieto gives a full lesson specifically on "rhythmic independence within Latin drumming" and plays a solo demonstrating some of his concepts.



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