Chuck Mangione Jazz Play-Along Volume 127 Book/Online Audio (Jazz Play-along, 127) Paperback – January 1, 2011

I've loved Mangione for decades and I love this play along system. You don't have to practice it for a month to keep up. It's pretty easy stuff. Sometimes you don't necessarily want to be challenged but just want to relax with some great and clever jazz phrasing. For the student this is a good way to practice soloing by using just the backing tracks. The only complaint is that the book covers almost every key (Bf Ef C and Bass Clef) but not F. Every so often I like to pull out my F-Horn also. Horn players rise up and be heard.

Excellent set of Mangione tunes, arranged and recorded beautifully. If you play solo to tracks, this set is actually better than a lot of the Aebersold's to use because there are only 2 to 4 choruses of improv. Some of the Aebersold's go on for 10-12 choruses and that tends to get tedious in a live restaurant or cocktail hour setting. If you just want to learn these beautiful tunes, it's all laid out clearly, in C, Bb and Eb for you. This one is especially welcome because it seems there wasn't much Mangione available in this format prior to this book being issued. I highly recommend it.

Purchased for one specific song, but have been working on the others as well. Faithful arrangements and a good accompaniment CD!

I received the book yesterday, got my flugelhorn out and gave the arrangements a close look. I primarily play trumpet but double on flugelhorn. The book includes music for C treble, B flat, E flat and C bass instruments. The included CD has a split track and a stereo track. The split track is used by woodwind, brass, keyboard and mallet players to learn the melody. Bass players can remove the bass track by turning down the left channel volume and then play along, and keyboard and piano players can remove the recorded piano by turning down the volume on the right track and playing along. The full stereo track has the rhythm parts only, so soloists or groups can play along. I was looking at this book as just something for me to play along with using my horn, but it offers so much more.The good news is that the arrangements are just as they were recorded by Chuck Mangione. In some cases that is also the bad news - he has a lot more range and endurance on the flugelhorn than most of us:)). "Chase the Clouds Away" is arranged in the staff for B flat and is one of the easier arrangements to play, as is "Land of Make Believe". "Children of Sanchez" as also written in the staff for B flat, but the tempo moves along smartly, making it more moderate in difficulty. "Feels So Good" gets more difficult because of the range. The melody is straightforward, but contains a lot of high A, B and C notes and a high D. "Give It All You Got" gets really challenging because of the fast, extended sixteenth notes in the upper register - lots of high B's, C's and D's here. "Hill Where the Lord Hides" has a couple of 15 beat long high C's. The bottom line is that playing this material well will challenge you no matter what your level of skill. It contains some pieces that most will be able to play along with at once, and some that you will really need to work on to master.

The book contains each song in different keys. Not too hard, yet still manageable. Solos with chords are available for improvisation

Very good to play along with!

This is a wonderful product! The CD includes both tracks with the trumpet lead part, and the same accompanying part without the lead horn. It's a great way to practice and work on phrasing.

This book is to hard for me, it's really advanced.