Late Night Jazz – Jazz Piano Solos Volume 27 | 24 Smooth and Sophisticated Jazz Classics for Solo Piano | Includes Autumn Leaves, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Bewitched, On Green Dolphin Street and More

This book is filled with professional-sounding arrangements that can be mastered with consistent practice. I would characterize the overall style as “cocktail piano on steroids”. Captivating chord voicings make for great playing and listening.

For a pianist like me, who has played casually for decades but hasn't taken lessons since high school, these arrangements are perfect--the chords and solo runs are interesting enough to make you sound like a pro (and get your listeners bopping along), but the arrangements are straightforward enough that you can master them without days and days of practice. This is definitely a notch simpler than Brubeck, but a good deal more sophisticated than piano-vocal-guitar arrangements you typically see. Each song has the standard verse-chorus-bridge and also one or two fully written-out solo sections. If using this music to play with an ensemble, you may need to modify the arrangement a bit to have the timings work out. The only minus to the book is that no lyrics are provided. So if, like me, you enjoy singing as you play, you'll have to look up the lyrics online and write them in yourself (or memorize them).

Great arrangements, beautiful to play. One criticism and maybe this is a “thing” but I’ll criticize anyway: Can we please just have a B natural and E natural instead of C flats and F flats? I mean c’mon...

One Jewel of a book. IF you hope to ever play refined night clubs where the accomplished businessmen and women go to enjoy the fruits of their labors ... this is THE book to play from. Many of us dream to play in a high class night club where tips pour with gratitude. These "Golden Oldie" tunes somehow hit a nerve in the center of the brain that says "Remember when?" They bring back memories like an old Humphrey Bogart movie. The book obviously written for medium to advanced players provides fluid treble lines and an accompanying bass cleft, as well as, Chord names. If you happen to have a book to hit the chord name you cannot recognize, you might find the very chord and finger positions with the book "Advanced Piano Chords" by Jake Jackson or any other book with jazz chord structures. Tunes like: Blue Skies, , God Bless the Child, Autumn Leaves, Angel Eyes, Almost Like Being in Love,, It Might As Well Be Spring, If you Go Away, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Willow Weep for Me, What now My Love?, I Wish You Love... to name a few of the 24 Songs in this sizable and easy to read book. For the medium to advanced player. You will enjoy playing these tunes in front of diners or those at the bar who reminisce of times gone by with tears in their eyes as you play their favorite "remember when" tunes.

I'm a classically trained pianist and jazz is a new interest and challenge for me. Nice arrangements in this bool. You can dress it up with his chord suggestions. Jazz piano has some different timing so for me my big challenge is just counting through very carefully on the songs that I don't recognize or that are arranged wherein the melody trails sporadically making it such that I can't count on my remembering how the song goes, so to speak. So it's a nice surprise when you get done seeing how it unfolds. Not too hard, too too easy. Fun.

The book physically lays flat across my music stand and the pages stay in place while I play. The pieces are very easy to pick up, as I could sight-read most of them without too much focus. I'd rate the difficulty as intermediate. However, the scores are each unique and do not suffer from the common issue of buying bulk standards online (often boring and blocky). Each piece offers unique interpretations and a "style" - for example, you can hear a lot of Bill Evan's rendition in the score for "autumn leaves". "Angel Eyes" has a classic diminished blues feel, right out of Sinatra's albums. Some of the pieces meant to be played faster, like "Blue Skies", are more sparsely written to allow for improvisation and an easier time to get up to speed. Very happy with this purchase!

Another great book in this series. These are beautiful arrangements that are challenging for the intermediate pianist, but are nice additions to your repertoire. I especially liked some of the songs that will take you back to the great blues singers of yesteryear: "God Bless the Child," "Willow, Weep for Me," "Bewitched," and "I Wish You Love." I had not found these particular songs in other books. Very lovely songs.

A refreshing change of mood. Night or Day! I have only played three pieces from this book (Bye Bye Blackbird, Autumn Leaves, Willow Weep For Me) and I have to admit it takes a couple of tries to get the feeling that arranger Brent Edstrom intended. Once there, I really dig his moody style, especially the bending feel of Bye Bye Blackbird. Not straight jazz by any means and I have to admit this is a great place to get a change from straight jazz playing. Thanks, Hal Leonard and Brent Edstrom for this change of paradigm. Here are the full contents. I usually do not like Bye Bye Blackbird, but this version was fun: 228 Hal Leonard Late Night Jazz arr: Brent Edstrom Almost Like Being In Love Angel Eyes Autumn Leaves Bewitched Blue Skies Bye Bye Blackbird Everything Happens To Me God Bless' The Child I Wish You Love I Won't Dance If You Could See Me Now If You Go Away Ill Wind (You're Blowin' Me No Good) Isfahan It Might As Well Be Spring Love Me Or Leave Me On Green Dolphin Street Smoke Gets In Your Eyes That Old Black Magic What Now My Love What's New? Why Was I Born? Willow Weep For Me Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away) If you are good at the piano, please buy this book and have a nice change of pace.