Learn 2 Play Jazz shortlisted as finalist for the 2026 National Music and Drama Education Award for "Outstanding Music Education Resource" - click HERE for more info.
Suitable for beginner to advanced adult learners on virtually any instrument...
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What our members say...
"He somehow makes what is seemingly complicated, understandable and simple and more to the point, as a saxophone player, his teaching gets the music coming out of my horn - no mean feat! His knowledge of jazz is encyclopedic and gives us students great understanding of how the music we are working on is constructed and developed by whichever jazz master we are studying. Every workshop or lesson he gives is underpinned by clear, straightforward teaching materials. Can’t recommend him highly enough!"
Lorrie Benwell - tenor sax
"Buster is friendly and approachable and is able to support and coach a group of really mixed ability and personalities. He ensures that every student takes away something to work on and has had an uplifting and positive experience. Buster is unfailingly enthusiastic about his subject and communicates this to the whole group. His sessions have been the most enjoyable and useful I have been privileged to attend since I started to try jazz."
Wendy - piano
"Buster’s many years of professional playing and teaching all ages, make him a superb teacher. Whatever your abilities or difficulties, he has great techniques for progressing your skills and knowledge. His love and enthusiasm for music and music education combine with kindness, humour and patience to make every lesson a great experience."
Ian Rowe - guitar and piano
"Lessons with Buster are very inspiring, he makes you feel that anything is possible and he gives you the tools to set you up to try. When he is teaching you can tell he wants the very best for you. He always has interesting and varied material and he moves at a pace to suit your skill level. His experience and patience ensures that every lesson will be both enjoyable and rewarding."
Ann - tenor saxophone
Over 100 hours of well-structured lessons from some of the most experienced, qualified and respected jazz educators in the UK. Learn to improvise, study the classic jazz recordings and develop your musicianship skills. From beginner to advanced players on virtually any instrument, there's something for you at Learn 2 Play Jazz!
Suitable for virtually any instrument including...
High Quality Play-Along Tracks
Learn 2 Play Jazz is pleased to have teamed up with the Quartet "Live" jazz play-along app series to provide high quality play-along tracks as part of our VIP subscription package. Each of the tracks provided matches the key and tempo featured in the accompanying jazz workshop, which you can find in the Lesson Vault.
Now you can enjoy practising along with this world-class rhythm section featuring some of the best jazz musicians in the UK!
Just click the triangle to hear a sample now...
Study the masters!
All workshops include transcriptions from the original recordings with custom-made play-along tracks to match the parts, slowed down to more manageable tempos.
No Real Books!
No generic midi backing tracks!
No Aebersolds
No Hal Leonards!
Learn jazz standards from the classic recordings... Just like they used to do!
Musicianship Training to level up your skills
Click HERE to start your 14 day FREE trial and unlock every course now!
The Lesson Vaults
Click HERE to start your 14 day FREE trial and unlock every lesson now!
The Lesson Vaults contain the entire back catalogue of all my online lessons, covering 70 classic jazz standards plus deeper dives into jazz theory, harmony, musicianship skills and improvisation techniques. Each lesson is approximately 1 hour long and includes downloads of all the class materials. For the jazz standards lessons, I walk you through each tune, section by section, and provide clear explanations of how the music works. I teach you simple strategies and techniques and show you how to construct a solo based on the ingredients of the music. We will practice improvising on each section separately using the custom play-along tracks at a manageable tempo and gradually piece the tune together, culminating in a full performance with you soloing over the whole piece by the end of the class.
Every lesson includes all of the downloads and class resources, including warm-up routines, full band parts, custom-made play-along tracks, transcriptions, links to the original recordings, session details including recording dates, personnel and Wiki links to full bios of musicians, plus a synopsis of album info.
The repertoire is listed alphabetically or you can filter by style to find just what you are looking for.
Click HERE to see what is in the vault!
Live Zoom Classes
Click HERE to start your 14 day FREE trial and get your invitation to my next live Zoom class.
Once per month I do a live Zoom class for about 1.25hrs. Each class is recorded and added to my lesson vault, which you can check out above. Every class comes with all of the handouts, resources, transcriptions, full band parts and custom made play-along tracks, which you can download in advance and prepare for the lesson. Everyone is muted in the class, so you are free to play along without feeling intimidated by anyone listening to you, or you are welcome just to observe the class and then do the practice afterward with the video recording, which you can pause, rewind and rewatch as often as you like. There is a Q&A session at the end of every live Zoom class, so you can ask any questions about anything we've been working on.
Click HERE to see my next live Zoom class!
Pathways
Short-term to medium-term goals
We always have too many things to work on and there's never enough time, so it's easy to end up wasting precious practice time wondering what to practice instead of actually practising! Also, there's an enormous amount of content on here, so it's easy to feel overwhelmed and not know where to start. To solve these two problems I have curated some of the content and put together these four pathways. Just pick which pathway you feel is right for you, jump in and get practising!
Set Lists
Medium-term to long-term goals
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of repertoire available and procrastinate or ping-pong from one tune to another without really getting to know any of them. To combat this I have curated some set lists for you to work on. The idea is to create a well-balanced program of six tunes that would work for one set at a jazz gig.
Each set list contains a mix of styles, such as latin, swing, blues, ballad, funky or modal, which is something you should always consider when putting a set list together. I have also picked tunes that are of a similar difficulty level, so you should find everything in the set manageable. Of course, you are welcome to mix and match, but do bear in mind the above two principles when building your own set list.
Some of you may have your own regular practice sessions, rehearsal groups or workshops and you are welcome to use my charts. There are full band parts included for every tune so do feel free to print them out and take them along.
Just click on a title to jump to that set list.
Books
I have also written two series of books on jazz improvisation, which include editions for different instruments. They are published by one of the largest UK music publishers (www.fundamental-changes.com) and are available in print worldwide from Amazon and other good stockists. Plus you can get them as immediate downloads on Kindle or as PDFs from the publisher's website.
My Beginner Jazz Soloing series is perfect for anyone starting out with improvising and takes you from scratch to improvising with confidence over a blues, a ii-V-I sequence, and other common chord progressions. There are four original compositions included and every single exercise includes audio play-along tracks (153 free audio downloads). These books have received hundreds of 5-star reviews and two books from this series have become Amazon best-sellers! For more information please click HERE
Rhythm Changes Soloing is my latest series and is perfect for anyone wanting to level up their jazz playing with an introduction to chord tone soloing, bebop embellishments and techniques, and a thorough study of the cornerstone of modern jazz, rhythm changes. There are four original compositions included and every single exercise includes audio play-along tracks (128 free audio downloads). These books have already received dozens of 5-star reviews. For more information please click HERE
