The 9 Essential Books for Jazz - Sent in from the JazzMemes Community

We recently polled our #JazzMemesFamily on Instagram asking them what are their essential books for jazz. The question was left open to include instructional jazz books or books written on the topic of jazz and music. We collected the most popular responses that were sent in and categorized them into two categories Performance and Theory/Concept. If you're new to jazz or haven't checked some of these books out, they're a great starting point to further your jazz education. Let us know in the comments which books you would add to this list.

Performance

• The Realbook - A collection of sheet music containing some of the most widely recognized jazz standards. Great to learn tunes from if you aren't at the level of transcribing everything by ear. Don't bring on a gig or jam session unless you want to be vibed. 
• The Omnibook - Essential study for learning the bebop language through one of its masters, Charlie Parker. Includes Parker's most famous bebop head, "Segment", as heard in this scene from the racing documentary by Will Ferrell, Talladega Nights. 
• Jamey Aebersold Series - Possibly the most well recognized voice in jazz and the most effective method to learn how to count off a tune. Jamey Aebersold had some of most used original backing tracks for musicians to shed along with using recordings of professional jazz musicians. That is, until the iReal Pro app and Band-in-the-Box allowed musicians to get more out of their backing tracks by using MIDI-based instruments and algorithms, finally removing one of the last human elements of jazz once and for all.
• The New Real Book - Like the Real Book, but including songs you'll actually get requests for such as "Feel Like Making Love", "Affirmation", and "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy".

Theory/Concept

• The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine - Everything you need to know about jazz theory and how to explain away every wrong note you played in your solo as an altered extension of some secondary dominant chord. If you didn't understand what I just said, you need this book.
• The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine - Learn all those cool substitutions your piano player keeps throwing into the song without you asking them too. I'm looking at you, Kevin...
• Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner - In this book, master jazz pianist, Kenny Werner, teaches the crucial life lessons necessary to develop mastery, such as playing your instrument while laying back.
• Jazz Piano Voicing Skills by Dan Haerle - The textbook of choice for many university level Jazz Piano Skills classes. Learn the most commonly used voicings for piano, including shell voicings, Drop 2's, 4th voicings and more by going through all 12 keys and never applying the chords to actual tunes.
• The Evolution of Jazz Drumming: A Workbook For Applied Drumset Students by Danny Gottlieb - An in-depth study of the masters in jazz drumming with excerpts in drum notation. Ideal for drummers that want to feel like they can read music too.

Let us know in the comments below which book you would add to this list!

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