The Beatles for Jazz Guitar | 23 Jazz-Style Chord Melody Arrangements | Iconic Beatles Songs for Solo Guitar | Guitar Sheet Music with Tablature and Chords | Jazz Guitar Songbook

edit 8/11/18: OK, I'm bumping my rating from 3 to 5 stars. Why? Well, first I thought these were too simple. But after absorbing many of these arrangements, I found they are at a level that I can play and enjoy. And of course, the material is great - it's the Beatles! Probably my favorite arrangement is Here, There and Everywhere. Other favorites: Eleanor Rigby, The Long and Winding Road, Can't Buy Me Love, Michelle, Strawberry Fields. These arrangements are a great way to absorb some CAGED shapes as well as other useful chord fragments. This is an ideal book, imo, for someone just getting introduced to chord melody. In fact, I used Good Night as a lesson to demonstrate the concept to someone - very straightforward since the melody mainly falls on chord tones. One last thing about reharmonization, I actually found major-triads to be preferable to major-7ths substitutions (eg I Will, Norweigian Wood, etc). Sometimes simple is best. So, my apoligies to Bill LaFleur for the initial tepid review. Please do another Beatles book, I'll be first in line! =================================================================================================== This are very simple arrangements, using very standard chords for the most part. Not much in the way of interesting reharmonizations or altered chords. I played through most of them last night and I doubt many of these will be keepers for me. I'm hoping to get a few though, and really, even one song from a book is not bad, given how inexpensive the book is compared to a lesson. If you want some accessible but more complex arrangements I suggest you go to 99centguitarlessons.com and browse Rich's extensive collection with graded difficulty and video samples. Also, check out Laurence Juber's Beatles book. He was Sir Paul's guitarist in Wings for a while. These are mostly altered tunings, but they are arranged beautifully for guitar. These are fingerstyle, rather than chord melody, but are worth exploring, especially "In My Life" and "Oh Darling" in standard tuning. For those who said they can't play these without a recording, I'd suggest getting the melody into your head and under your fingers (reading either the tab or standard notation), then add the occasional chord, which is basically all some of these arrangement are.

This is the only jazz melody book I could find on the Beatles music, which is notoriously difficult to arrange in a jazz style. So far, I have been very pleased - the arrangements are reasonably challenging, but retain the character and style of the originals - the chord extensions and substitutions emphasize the simplicity and directness of the melodies, rather than obscure them. The arranger - Bill La Fleur - has excelled. Not a beginner's book, but very accessible. The 23 tunes contained in the book are: All My Loving Blackbird Can't Buy Me Love Eight Days A Week Eleanor Rigby Golden Slumbers Good Night Here, There And Everywhere Hey Jude I Will In My Life Let It Be The Long And Winding Road Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds Michelle Norwegian Wood Nowhere Man Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da Something Strawberry Fields Forever Ticket To Ride While My Guitar Gently Weeps Yesterday

There are several good songs in this collection -- songs worth learning and adding to a setlist. I felt that the melody lines come through clearly, though some of the harmonization choices felt repetitive to me (example: frequent use of 6/9 chords in endings). Of course, given that many of these songs are, basically, simple pop tunes, it's understandable that arrangements would be similar to each other. It might be that w/ backing, say a good base player, this wouldn't be noticeable. In any case, I'd expect to mix a few of these into a set on a given night rather than playing several back-to-back, so there'd be plenty of variety overall in a performance. I'm pretty sure most audiences would recognize the tunes in performance, which for jazz players can provide a good connection. It would be useful to include comping arrangements over the staff.

I bought this book to challenge myself: I've been playing guitar for decades, but really haven't spent much time in the company of chords whose names read like the password to your bitcoin account. This has those--in spades--applied to songs I've always liked and will enjoy learning to play. Some reviewers have complained that these arrangements are too elementary for their needs. That may well be. For such reviewers--as for you, if you're sufficiently advanced in jazz theory not to feel, upon being asked to play a B7♭9#5/D#, that somewhere an angel has suddenly lost their wings--my advice would be to get out of the shallow end and leave the rest of us to have our fun. (And likewise, I suppose, if learning how to get past that feeling doesn't sound like fun). For my purposes, this book is perfect: it has a good selection of songs, tabs matched up with standard notation, chord names properly placed, and just enough room between staves to use my chord-blank rubber stamp and draw in the requisite chord shapes. I am happy with my purchase. Your mileage may vary.

Best guitar book that I own. The arrangements are simple and not too difficult for an average guitar player--I used to play more seriously but these days just like to relax and play through some arrangements. This book is perfect for that.

Nice book

There are some gems here, but the quality of the arrangements is uneven. in particular the arrangements of Eleanor Rigby & Strawberry Fields forever were disappointing because of the overuse of quartal voicings. Those might work fine in an ensemble comping where the bass line is played by another instrument. but in a chord solo, careless quartal harmonization can easily lose the functional quality of the harmony. That tendency to obscure the chord is particularly jarring with Beatles songs because the changes are deceptively minimalistic and often create surprises for the ear with a single modal substitution or unexpected resolution. If you Bill Evans the voicings up too much without taking care to preserve those particular notes against the melody line, you can lose the beatles-yness of the changes. The result is ok, maybe even interesting modal jazz at times, but it doesn’t sound like the Beatles, and if it doesn’t sound like the Beatles, what’s the point of a book like this? Often these shortcomings can be improved by replacing a too-adventurous voicing with a drop triad or shell voicing. But if Im going to do that, i might as well arrange the song myself, which is what I bought the book to avoid doing. This isn’t a problem with every tune here. In particular Yesterday, Norwegian Wood, and Michelle were very nice. But it crops up as an issue often enough that there are several arrangements to tunes I was hoping to add to be able my repertoire that I probably wont.

Good arrangements for the most part. Not for beginners.

これ、最低。あまりジャズっぽくないしアレンジもクソ。本じゃなくてkindleなら半値ぐらいと見て飛びついたけど。やっぱり、。。。なるほど、安いわけだ。。ってか。。。。無駄な出費をした。kindleにも反省してほしい。

Excelente, arranjos de muito bom gosto. Desafio para estudantes intermediários a avançados. Notação clara e boa escolha de repertório. Recomendo!

I've been playing guitar for 13+ years but never really got into jazz guitar, so I figured getting into it with The Beatles would be a good start. I found the book to be very helpful and fun. If you're a beginner guitarist, don't feel intimidated by this book. If you take it slow, note by note and chord by chord, you will get the hang of it and have some great songs to play and show off your skills with. I only wish there had been some more hits - I would have loved to see an arrangement of Penny Lane, Yellow Submarine, Taxman, and Across The Universe...even Hey Jude! However, it's still a great book for both Beatles and non-Beatles fans. Very easy to understand.

Great resource

Conoscevo questo spartito avendolo avuto in precedenza, ma era andato perso. Sono brani famosi riadattati in chiave jazz, tutto sommato semplici da eseguire. Purtroppo il plico di cartoncino è arrivato con un giro di nastro adesivo trasparente che ha incollato anche il fascicolo all'interno. Nulla di terribile, ma comunque fastidioso. Non ho voglia di perdere tempo con un reso, ma sarebbe da richiedere magari un parziale rimborso.