Hi Ricke and others,

I'm a piano player and start with the basic voicings described in Dan Haerle's book of jazz piano voicings:

One handed voicings for left hand starting from the bottom up:

E A Bb D (that gets you the third, the 13th, the seventh and the 9th all with one hand!)

and inverted starting at the 7th:

Bb D E A

these may be simplified as follows:

E Bb D for a basic 9th chord

and

Bb E A for a three note 13th

These voicings go together with related minor and major chords in basic ii V I progressions and for the tri-tone substitutions that you hear all over jazz recordings. Haerle's book is a great suggestion if you're looking for how to voice chords that you find in fake book charts. Another good suggestion is the Mike Tracy book on piano voicings for non-Keyboardists which extends the voicings above into two handed forms.

Thanks,
Bill