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The books I have are all either a) pretty basic; b) practical application, like Smith's, or c) very niche-specific, like on big band arranging.

I studied music in college in the 70s, so modern jazz was barely 20 years old. The classes I took in things like quartal harmony used instructor notes rather than texts - I don't think there were any real texts around. Maybe someone with a more current education can advise us both.

I have heard good things about Levine's "Jazz Theory", but I've never looked at a copy - so it might fall into one of the above categories.

NoteBoat, thanks for the info...

I studied music at univeristy in the late '70s and early '80s, so was pretty much in the same boat, though I've had private lessons outside of school here and there throughout the years. I think I had a David Baker book or two, and it seems like I got a jazz theory book when I wen to the Stan Kenton jazz camps in the late '70s, but that book got lent out years ago and I never got it back. I forgot that I picked up "The Complete Arranger" by Sammy Nestico and the transcription book of Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool" a few years ago. I have a part-time job arranging for a praise band that has horns, and those books were recommened by a local jazz guy who does a lot of arranging.

You might want to check out Mickey Baker's "Complete Handbook for the Music Arranger" - not a heavy theory or harmony book, but it's a nice compact description of scoring for ensembles, big bands, chorus, etc.

The first half of the book covers part writing (about 40 pages) orchestration (20 pp) and chord voicing (5pp). The second half gets into treatment of various ensembles like string orchestra, wind and horn sections, big bands and so on. The sections don't go into a lot of detail - so somebody new to arranging would do better to get Piston, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc.... and once you've gone through the typical orchestration works you won't find a lot of new material here - except perhaps the sections on arranging brass and saxes for big band charts - but I find it very handy to have a compact reference.