Should I buy Grigson, A Jazz Chord Book that is referred to extensively in NGHLB?
• Grigson is chords only no melodies. • The latest edition (red cover) was published after Grigsons death. It is the first computer typeset version and has typographical errors. • Previous versions of the book were much better, apparently, and contained variations on the chords sequences and explained which are used for the heads, which for solos and which for other circumstances. • If you can see beyond this, it is still a useful collection of chords that are actually used for standards, rather than the ones that you might find on the source sheet music. Excellent recording sources are used such as Bill Evans and Parker. • The songs are laid out in grid format that allows the structure to be easily seen, unlike most real books that provide the melody and words. • If it is just chords that you want, there are many other sources, but the good thing about Grigson is that much unnecessary obfuscation is removed. • Some find the current edition of Grigson intolerable because so much has be
