12 pieces with difficulty from medium to advanced 1. Overjoyed (advanced) - through-composed Gershwin-type piece with a stylistic salute to the popular combination of early jazz and classical piano music of the 1920´s 2. Old Chum (medium – until the 2nd half!) - old-school stride piano in two tempos 3. Love Has Reawakened (medium) - lyrical, Bill Evans-inspired ballad with sequentialmelody and harmonic variation 4. Old-Timers (advanced) - Horace Silver-flavored. I have orchestrated in a way that imitatesand includes the elements of an ensemble piece 5. Carl´s Parade (advanced) - bluesy, Memphis-oriented Dave Grusin-inspired piece with a low left-hand groove motor 6. The Harefooted Arab (advanced) - Middle East-inspired piece with the inherent melodic limitations of the Western tempered tuning. Since the piano is not able to reproduce the Arabian modes, I try to compensate with scales that imitate, ornamentations etc. Rhythmically and technically challenging 7. La Menace au Loin (medium) - ostinato in A-sections succeeded by bass player-type left hand in B-sections. Chord symbols with some complexity as basis for ad lib solo 8. Sweet Talker (medium) - Erroll Garner-inspired tune with a playful atmosphere as well as typical Garner elements in both hands 9. Big Sergej (advanced) - swinging Oscar Peterson-type piano piece with some occassional dense voicings. Semi-stride left hand á la Erroll Garner (though spread out) and an ”improvised”solo to get you started 10. Beloved (medium) - classic sounding jazz ballad – i.e. as if picked up from Broadway or Hollywood - with diatonic harmony for the most part 11. Separation, Unification, Consolidation (medium) - Middle-Eastern inspired tune balancing on the edge of minor/major 12. As he left, he laughed (advanced) - bebop-ish including a ”typical” chromatic and busy chord progression. As with some of the other pieces, it includes a semi-stride left-hand rhythm section Foreword by Nikolaj Bentzon There are tons of printed jazz music available for solo piano - e.g. transcriptions of the masters or scored music with more or less detailed notation. The latter leaves the pianist somewhat in the dark when it comes to the expansion or development of what is notated. In this publication I have tried to compensate for this. I have written down in detail how I wouldembark on these 12 originals, including a fully charted theme as well as the integrated or subsequentimprovisation/soloing. This will ideally come accross as (partly) improvised music when played, even though the notes have all been prearranged – similar to a classical piece of music. On a pedagogical level, this will give you a glance into the machine room of solo jazz piano, or alternatively, it will leave you with a launch pad for your inner jazz piano player – even if you never studied the contents of jazz. Nevertheless, I have left several open spaces here and there for you to explore your hidden improvisational skills. After all, that is probably how you got attracted to jazz in the first place. To my mind, the creative abilities of you or anybody else do not stop with the interpretation of notated music - they are merely hidden and waiting to come out! I hope you´ll have fun with it.