It started off as a couple of handout sheets for my students. When it ballooned up to about ten pages worth, I started thinkin' "this might make a book." After expanding it to ten chapters, I decided to publish the whole thing myself, and called it "Instant Jazz Theory-Just Add Water & Stir." I sold a coupla hundred copies, and figured that was the end of it.
A few weeks later, I got a call while I was trying to sleep through a music history class...it was Mike Sweeney at Hal Leonard. He got a copy of my book from a friend, who got it from somebody here in Houston. How ironic---most folks spend years trying to land a publishing deal, and this one just dropped in my lap. It sounded too good to be true, and for the next four years it was---I found myself trapped in editing hell.
I think I went through four or five editors at Hal Leonard, each with ideas on how we should market the book. The first thing that got axed was my title---too edgy, I guess. One title that had corporate approval was "Music Theory Made Easy." Somebody musta really liked that one.....my book is still listed on the HL site under that name!
Finally, I was assigned to Beth Sablay. Beth is all about getting things out the door, which suited me just fine. I had begun to think I'd be trapped in a file cabinet in Milwaukee the rest of my life. Fortunately, Beth saved me from the dust bin. With only a couple of minor tweaks, my text was untouched. The title didn't fare as well, being replaced with the sanitized "Jazz Essentials--Nuts & Bolts Instruction For The Jazz & Pop Musician."
But hey, it was finally out there! And one huge plus was I was able to talk them into using Todd Harrison to do illustrations for the book. They came out fantastic, and really made the whole thing a terrific project. I have a few of his drawings that didn't make the final cut, and I'll be posting them here shortly.
