Jazz Piano School

Brenden Lowe is a working jazz pianist who got tired of watching students waste time piecing together jazz education from random YouTube videos and forum posts. Jazz Piano School is his answer: a structured podcast that takes you through harmonic concepts, practice routines, ear training, and the inner workings of standards with real pedagogical intent behind each episode. The show has been running since 2015 and sits at 390 episodes, with a 4.8-star rating from 314 reviews — which is genuinely strong for an educational music podcast. Episodes release monthly now, though the archive is dense enough that you will be working through older material for a long time before catching up. Topics range from beginner foundations like understanding chord extensions to more advanced territory like reharmonization, block chord voicings, and transcribing from recordings. Lowe teaches in a conversational way rather than lecturing. He often talks through a concept the way he would explain it to a student sitting at the piano next to him — sometimes demonstrating at the keys, sometimes walking through the theory verbally, always tying the idea back to actual music you might play on a gig. The companion website offers courses and resources for deeper work, but the podcast stands alone as a free educational resource. For jazz piano students specifically, this is one of the most complete and consistently updated shows available. And for non-pianists curious about how jazz harmony actually functions, Lowe's explanations are clear enough to be worth the time regardless of your instrument.