Standard Of Excellence Jazz Ensemble Method For Group Or Individual

Getting Past The Basics With This Method

I've been running school jazz combos and private studio students for years now, and the Standard Of Excellence Jazz Ensemble Method For Group Or Individual by Kevin Kern and Bob Beach comes up constantly. It's the book I pull off the shelf when I need something structured but not suffocating. Here's how it actually works in practice, and where it trips people up. The method is built around progressive repertoire rather than pure technical drills. Each book in the series introduces a jazz style or concept through playable ensemble pieces that get slightly more demanding as you move forward. Book 1 covers basic swing, blues forms, and simple comping patterns. Book 2 moves into Latin styles, bossa nova, and more sophisticated harmonies. Book 3 pushes into modern jazz vocabulary and arranging concepts. The individual practice books run parallel, giving each instrument its own etudes and exercises tied to the same musical concepts. That linkage is the whole point of the system. You're not doing saxophone exercises in a vacuum while the band plays something totally unrelated. The method forces everything to connect, which saves a enormous amount of rehearsal time trying to reconcile separate practice habits.

I found the biggest stumbling block early on was the tempo markings. The book suggests tempos that work on paper but fall apart with real student ensembles. Book 1 lists a few pieces at swing quarter notes around 200-220. That's fine for a seasoned player alone at home, but getting a high school rhythm section to hold that cleanly without rushing into chaos takes serious work. I cut the suggested tempos roughly 25 percent and built from there. Students lock in faster at achievable speeds, then gradually increase. Going the other direction and trying to meet the printed tempo usually just teaches bad habits like overblowing and rushing.

How The Method Actually Structures Learning

Each chapter follows a pattern: technique exercises, ensemble charts, play-along tracks, and theory application. The play-along CDs or digital tracks are included with each book and they're genuinely useful. Having a metronome-style backing track that's actually musical instead of a robotic click makes individual practice dramatically more effective. My students who use the tracks independently show noticeably better time feel within three weeks. The arranging side of the method gets glossed over a lot, but it's where the system really distinguishes itself from generic jazz method books. You get exposure to how parts are written for different sections, what writing in guide tones actually means on the page, and how to read standard jazz sheet music without panicking. Most beginners can handle the music reading after two or three months if they stick with the progression. The charts are intentionally notated clearly with standard jazz language: swing markings, ride cymbal patterns, comping symbols, and solo form indications all appear early rather than being deferred to advanced books.

A Real Problem I Hit And How I Worked Around It

The bass methods in the individual books assume a certain level of walking bass competence that a lot of student bass players simply haven't developed yet. When I first tried running the full method with a mixed-level ensemble, the bass section became the weak link. Charts that should have been solid grooves sounded wobbly and uncertain because half the players were guessing at note choices rather than applying the method's guidelines. My workaround was straightforward but time-consuming. I pulled the bass etudes from Book 1 and made them into mandatory sight-reading assignments for the entire semester, not just bass players. Drummers and piano players need to understand walking bass lines too because comping and bass movement are interdependent. I had the whole rhythm section learn the bass exercises together during warm-up. It added maybe ten minutes per rehearsal but it completely transformed how the ensemble locked in. After six weeks the bass section steadied out and the rest of the band started swinging harder because they finally had a reliable foundation to build on.

What The Method Doesn't Cover Well

Let's be clear about the gaps. The Standard Of Excellence Jazz Ensemble Method For Group Or Individual does not teach improvisation vocabulary in depth. You'll get form cues and scale suggestions for solos, but there isn't a systematic approach to building a personal language the way a real transcribing curriculum would. If your students have never analyzed a solo or learned any bebop lines, this method alone won't fix that. It prepares the ground but doesn't build the house. The method also assumes access to decent instrumentation. A full combo with piano, bass, drums, horn section, and a few soloists works best. Trying to run it with a stripped-down four piece means rearranging charts or skipping sections, which defeats some of the structural intent. I've seen bands try to make it work with fewer players and it just results in a lot of frustration and half-finished arrangements. Another limitation is the repertoire selection. The charts lean heavily on standard jazz education territory: blues, swing, bossa, Latin. That's valuable training but it leaves gaps in contemporary styles. Students finish the three-book sequence knowing how to play traditional jazz ensemble music well, but they'll need supplementary material for fusion, modal approaches, and modern compositional styles if that's what their audience or upcoming performances require.

Practical Advice For Using It

Don't rush through the books. I see a lot of directors pushing students from Book 1 to Book 2 in a single semester to check a box. That backfires. The concepts stack on each other, and missing the foundational material makes everything after it twice as hard. A realistic pace is one book per academic year with repeated performance of the earlier charts throughout. Muscle memory and harmonic internalization take time. Use the play-along tracks aggressively. Independent practice with the accompaniment tracks develops time feel and ensemble awareness in ways that playing along with a teacher or metronome simply cannot match. I assign at least two tracked pieces per week as homework. Students come to rehearsal already hearing the parts in their heads, which cuts rehearsal time on new material from roughly forty-five minutes down to fifteen. Make the rhythm section sit with the horn section at least once a week during rehearsal. I know that sounds obvious, but it's easy to fall into the habit of rehearsing sections separately and bringing everyone together only for final run-throughs. The method's arrangement concepts become much clearer when brass and reeds hear how the comping and bass walking actually interact in real time. One focused twenty-minute session where the horns watch the rhythm section work through a chart makes more difference than three hours of isolated sectionals.

Supplement with transcribing. Pick one solo per month from the repertoire the method introduces and have students learn it by ear. Even a sixteen-measure phrase builds listening skills that the printed page alone cannot develop. It's an extra hour of work per student but it closes the biggest gap in the curriculum.

Who Should Use This And Who Should Look Elsewhere

This method works best for beginner to intermediate ensembles in middle school through early college settings. If you're running an advanced jazz lab with players who already read standards cold and have strong improvisational vocabularies, you'll outgrow Book 3 quickly and need supplemental material anyway. For those groups, methods like Mark Levine's Jazz Piano Method or Jerry Coker's improvisation texts alongside a serious repertoire list will serve you better. For beginning programs, this is about as good as it gets in a single package. The integration of ensemble playing, individual technique, and music reading in one cohesive system is genuinely rare. Most method books treat those as separate concerns. The downside is that no single method covers every need, and this one is no exception. Pair it with targeted transcription work, supplement the rhythm section curriculum where it's thin, and you'll get solid results without chasing perfection. The cost is reasonable for what you get. Book sets run between sixty and ninety dollars depending on the edition and format. The digital play-along options reduce the need for physical CDs and make replacement copies easier if something gets damaged, which happens more often than you'd expect with high school instruments.

Start with Book 1, stay with it long enough to actually absorb the concepts, use the tracks, and don't treat the method as a checklist to clear. The players who benefit most are the ones who let the material build their instincts rather than rushing past it to get to something flashier.