The Paul Desmond Collection: Alto Saxophone (Artist Transcriptions)

I have all three Desmond transcription books currently on the market. This is by far the best. If you play jazz, you know that jazz music is an approximation of the timing of what is played and the jazz "feel" comes from the skill of the player, both emulating the masters and imparting one's own interpretation. For that reason, listening to the original songs is by far the best way to learn both how to read jazz charts in general and how to play these songs in particular. The advantage of this book is that it includes the grace notes and breath notes that Paul Desmond used as ornamentals in his playing. The transcriptions in the other books are basically a 95% solution and the accompanying CDs follow suit. You can learn to play a song exactly as on those transcriptions and the CDs and you will sound as lifeless as those examples. To make the songs come alive, listen and learn from the original. The one value of an accompanying CD would be to provide background to play with once the song is mastered. Even when a song is included in two or more books, as the most popular are, I use the transcriptions in this book to help learn the songs and then play along with the CD from the other books. I agree an accompanying CD, at least with background tracks would be nice to have, but if you want to learn to play the songs as close as possible to the way Paul Desmond did, the failure to include a CD is not a reason not to buy this book. Though I would like a CD, I would prefer a Volume II to this book.

I haven't checked all the pieces, but buyers should be aware that the "Audrey" transcription is not in the same key or octave as what Desmond plays on the record. The original recording is in B-flat minor, but this book has it in G minor.

Regarding the previous comment - yes it's true that this books doesn't come with a CD, but all the transcriptions are spot on, and that's what matters. All I can say is, if you don't know how it's supposed to sound then go on YouTube, or even better, buy some Desmond albums, and you'll hear what you need to play. Besides, I bought this book only because I had problems with transcribing two parts in "Desmond Blue" solo and all I can say now is "Eureka"!

Great transcriptions of Desmond's solos and melodies from various recordings.

Great music book. My son's music teacher is a huge Paul Desmond fan and he loves this book!

This is a great transcription book. I built a playlist in a music subscription app with the exact recordings of every song and it's lots of fun to play along with Paul D. The transcriptions are very accurate - I've only found a few errors in the entire book. Good mixture of easier and more challenging tunes.

Useful music for practice, I like Desmond's music anyway. I can play it without too much complicated fingering.

Just love Paul's improvisations and this book allows you to recreate the special arrangements he created. A great musician. They don't come better than this! Peter

This was a gift for a budding alto sax musician. He found the music contents very useful

Ottimi soli, manca una analisi. Per suonare e imarare lo stile di Paul Desmond vanno bene. Meglio trascriversi i soli

Bonnes partitions