Oriental Jazz Improvisation - Microtonality and Harmony is a comprehensive comparative study
that explores the incorporation of Turkish Arabic and Northern Indian scales and modes into
jazz improvisation and modulation. The book includes a multitude of scales and modes from these
music cultures along with their transpositions. These scales and modes are essential for any
musician interested in South-Western Asian or Northern Indian music. Besides the book delves
into numerous scales and modes from other cultures' folk music such as Greek rebetiko
Bulgarian wedding music or Jewish music highlighting parallels and similarities among these
diverse music traditions.Each scale and mode is presented in its purest - microtonal - form
including the exact interval values in the particular tuning used in the classical Turkish
Arabic or Northern Indian music tradition. Additionally the basics of the respective music
theories are imparted. Further the genuine scales and modes are transcribed into the equal
temperament and several practical techniques are shown how to apply them in a jazz context.
Also a variety of useful methods are demonstrated of how South-Eastern European Romani people
and Jews use some of those scales and modes in improvisation. It further explores how scales
which may appear identical but exist under different names in various music cultures are
applied differently in these traditions. Scales that can date back to ancient Greece or even as
far as Babylonia. This book is going to make you neither a Turkish Arabic nor Indian musician
but it surely will broaden your musical vocabulary.
