Cocktail Piano Standards
15 Lush Solo Arrangements of 15 Jazz Classics Sheet Music Book
By Al Lerner

There are some books that you buy, and try really hard to find at least one arrangement to like in it, to justify having bought it. This book is sadly one of them. I did manage to find one arrangement that I liked, "Tenderly" but unfortunately that's about it...

. The hallmark of a good arranger is if you are hearing /playing the arrangement and if it is unfamiliar to it, you seek out the original song because the arrangement was so beautiful. This book doesn't do this for me, unclear melody lines, with too many "clever" and distracting chords and no genuinely interesting riffs or variations, style of which comes across as clunky and dissonant for the sake of being so. The tunes and style of all the songs sound similar. Maybe it is the style, but I found the arrangements by Rupert Austin and Brent Edstrom more elegant and interesting. If I was able to hear excerpts from the audio CD (which was made available only after purchase), I wouldn't have bought this book.

Very nicely written.

These pieces are a lot harder than they look because of the stretches and runs, but a lot of fun to play. The audio really helps you figure out what it's supposed to sound like.

I'm not sure if these arrangements were too advanced for me, or if I just didn't know how to read them. There were no lyrics, so I wasn't sure where the actual song started. But nothing sounded anything like what the song was supposed to sound like...

, on any of the songs! I'm going to continue to try to figure them out, but it won't be one of my regular go-to's.

Two part wispy moments alternate with blocks of notes - dissonant? challenging? lovely? all of the above? Modern harmonies - Hindemithian stacks of fourths. Just what I was looking for.