Great Jazz Chord Voicing Practice Book - Phil DeGreg "Jazz Keyboard Harmony"

I am currently studying Jazz improvisation from Tamir Hendelman, and one of his first recommendations was to study Jazz Keyboard Harmony book by Phil DeGreg.

I am sure that there are many books covering this topic, but this one is one of the most practical books I have laid my hands on and I am practicing the lessons in this every day ever since.

My issue with many other books of this nature is that they just tell you the theory of Jazz chords but they do not guide you step by step how to actually play them correctly. In fact some theory books tend to miss the whole point of what are the key elements of chord harmony. For example, I actually did not know playing just 2 notes in any given chord is often very adequate and those notes are 3rd and the 7th (minor 3rd, 7th and major 7th including).

The book begins with practice on playing Root + 3rd and Root + 7th (called shell voicing) then gradually add more tones, more fingers, both hands etc in the chords as the book progresses. So you will get to learn how to form and recognize more complex chords and will have ability to voice all differently

The approach is very systematic and practical and even if you do not sight-read the music, the book gives you formulaic diagrams for harmonization. It also comes with a CD which can be used to "comp" the drums and bass for all the patterns and also it includes 4 songs written by Phil at the end of each major chapter. As you make more progress you can add more complex voicing on the same song.

If you have been like me only knowing a few basic chord voicing, but never totally understood how to voice chords or how other great Jazz pianists do this, I can really recommend this book as it will require us to more systematically look at how Jazz chord voicing works on keyboards and also you can methodically step by step from 2 fingers to all 10 fingers with a pedal making actual progress by playing all the lessons every day and then do the Appendix B exercise once you've mastered each chapter; it is just like you would do with classical method books like Hanon and really no way around this.

In the end if I see a chord symbol coming up on the chart, I can instantly recall all possible voicing pattern that can be applied.  This can be practiced by reading the appendix of the book with many "tables" of chords to practice progression once I mastered the voicing in the main text of the book.