Where can I find solo guitar arrangements of jazz standards?

[palepanther]

I come from a classical guitar background, and one of my students is interested in learning jazz (I'm wanting to get more into it myself). I'm looking for books or other resources that have solo guitar arrangements of jazz tunes already laid out, preferably in a beginner-intermediate level. I have a Real Book, but I'm not really a strong arranger yet to marry the chords and melody together in a way to make the tune sound good on guitar by itself, so I'm wanting some songs already arranged. Let me know if y'all know of anything!

[grahambop]

Barry Galbraith Chord Melody arrangements, a good collection of 42 tunes.

[44lombard]

Barry Galbraith Chord Melody arrangements, a good collection of 42 tunes.

+1 on Barry Galbraith. Two volumes were officially published and include CDs with recordings of each arrangement. A .pdf is floating around the internet with additional arrangements by Barry that weren't in the official publications. The Galbraith arrangements were written for Barry's students, and while they have lots of sophisticated harmonies and can be quite beautiful, they don't sound exactly like something Barry might have recorded as-is. I think many are a single chorus long. Plenty to chew on.

10 of Gene Bertoncini's solo jazz guitar arrangements were published a few years ago, and they are (imho) superb, and were originally performed by Gene on a nylon-string guitar for two different solo guitar albums (recorded in 1999 and 2005). These are more expansive than the Galbraith arrangements, generally speaking, having more than one chorus and some development of motifs and so forth.

Search Amazon for ASIN: B00AZPAE2E

John Herington, whose day job is being a guitarist in the touring version of Steely Dan, has released two volumes of solo jazz guitar arrangements.
Jon Herington Arrangements For Guitar

There are several others. I only have direct experience with the first two discussed above.

You can hear people playing Galbraith arrangements on Youtube, and you can also hear Bertoncini himself, plus other folks, playing Bertoncini's arrangements. See the series of videos titled "An Evening With Gene Bertoncini part 1" "... part 2" etc. Gen. e doesn't have flawless classical technical...he's always been a jazz guy, and doesn't pretend to be anything else. Some people reviewing his solo recordings online have faulted him for not executing every passage like Williams or Bream. On this forum, you'll see a lot of people who think very highly of Gene's aesthetic and style, which is distinctive in solo jazz guitar. And I'm sure some who don't think very highly of Gene.

[chasranney]

Chris Whiteman, a professional guitarist, has several excellent arrangements for sale at very reasonable prices.

Chris is a member of this forum and has "liked" a couple of posts in this very thread. Too much a gentleman to recommend his own product, maybe.

Chris has a Youtube channel where you can see & hear his arrangements. You can buy them individually so you risk very little. Good luck!

[eh6794-2.0]

Google or Youtube

[Jason Sioco]

I come from a classical guitar background, and one of my students is interested in learning jazz (I'm wanting to get more into it myself). I'm looking for books or other resources that have solo guitar arrangements of jazz tunes already laid out, preferably in a beginner-intermediate level. I have a Real Book, but I'm not really a strong arranger yet to marry the chords and melody together in a way to make the tune sound good on guitar by itself, so I'm wanting some songs already arranged. Let me know if y'all know of anything!

Go to youtube, then download the song you find, and learn it by ear teacher!!! XD Screw books and sheet music!!!

[rob taft]

There are so many choices today and some are discussed above,especially Chris Whiteman, I'd also recommend the books under Howard Morgen's name. See the link below.

https://www.amazon.com/Through-Melod...s%2C273&sr=8-2

[DaveLeeNC]

This book https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GQZO1L2...ng=UTF8&btkr=1 has 15 very well known jazz standards arranged for kind of a mostly 'low intermediate level' of classical guitar. There is enough 'room' in the arrangements to allow you or the student to add some things as kind of a baby step toward jazz improvising. And it does include chords/harmonization which is helpful.

dave

[cosmic gumbo]

What happened to Steve Herron? Haven't seen him post in months. He was in every chord melody thread, posting and selling an assortment of chord melody method books.

[Dave70]

There are so many choices today and some are discussed above,especially Chris Whiteman, I'd also recommend the books under Howard Morgen's name. See the link below.

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Yes, Howard Morgen will help you, palepanther. I'd recommend his book "Concepts".

Since you're from a classical guitar background you'd like that is no tab in this book. (Through Chord Melody and Beyond is great but Concepts starts at a more beginner-friendly level.)

[wzpgsr]

Also chiming in to support Chris Whiteman. Fantastic player with a huge library of solo guitar renditions on YouTube, filmed in a way that makes them excellent learning tools.

[Patlotch]

There are GoogleBook excerpts from

A collection of eleven solo guitar arrangements by noted guitarist and instructor, Joe Livoti. These performance ready arrangements were taken from his recordings, and from his arrangements as heard on Youtube. For intermediate and advanced players. Includes tablature as well as traditional notation and theoretical explanations. Songs included are: Amazing Grace; 2 levels, Love Me Tender, Freight Train; 4 levels, Green River, Help Me Make it Through the Night, The Bonnie Blue Flag, Such Great Heights, Dream a Little Dream of Me, She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain, The Lady is a Tramp, Land of Giants.