Interesting situation. Materials like this are not easy to come by. Have you searched for music teacher resources? There are some other options which may require some musical know-how.

There are tonnes of scores of small ensemble brass band arrangements in your local library. All that would be required is to transpose each part for a C instrument.

If you're looking for something by way of non jazz materials, there are world music ensemble books out there. When I was younger I busked with a trio playing from a beginners ensemble book of folk tunes from all over the world.

If you yourself are musically inclined and want to lay some foundation for your son to pursue jazz in the future (should he choose to), my suggestion would be to grab the real book in bass clef and choose a really easy head like All Blues; add a rhythm section and theres another ensemble.

With regards to solo pieces, my suggestion would be to get your son to pick a song he really likes once every week or so and then guide him through play to it by ear. Developing confidence in playing without the music stand as a safety blanket is a great asset.

Thanks for the reply -

I have been "stealing" from other instrument arrangements and transcribing. Trouble is...often what seems easily fingered turns out to be difficult because of the sequence of notes, not the actual note placement/octaves themselves. Since I don't play cello, this isn't always obvious to me.

The other clarification I'd like to make is that he likes to play with other cellists which means I need to find duets and trios and quartets and quintets...*sigh. Some of the materials I tried to transcribe or create were ultimately so complicated for a beginner that I donated them to NDCF as fund-raising materials.

Given the general desire among contemporary cellists to grow this aspect of cello playing, maybe a more concerted approach to providing a repetoire is needed. I'm willing to do some cello arrangement heavy lifting but my strong back is accompanied by a weak mind...:-)

This is a shout-out to the pros and pro-amateurs out there:

Can you folks help the cello community with some scaled for beginners jazz, blues or pop arrangements?

Can I just point out that repertoire for an alternative/new directions cellist is not in spirit of going towards a new direction? For me, being a non classical cellist means being free from having a set repertoire or more importantly having external learning structures or benchmark standards imposed upon you by a governing body of master theorists of that field... Having repertoire by definition immediately means you are wanting to build a tradition, by which obviously individual stylistic development won't be valued. Is that what you really want?

I realise you want your son to play non classical music with other cellists but to form a standard book of non classical things to learn for beginner instrumentalists is a bit of a cookie cutter mentality don't you think? Perhaps teaching the language of music (written and oral) and its place in society around the world through cello would be a nice holistic approach to teaching him (if you aren't already doing this!) As opposed to teaching cello, with cello repertoire.

For beginners I usually get kids set up with the instrument and give logical reasons for why they should hold the instrument like that. Then with every little bit of advancement of technique I get them to make cool noises with their instrument and talk about why they do or don't like it. This is really important for them to learn to think for themselves and it lays the foundation to form informed opinions about music. I'd encourage my students to look for music or sounds they hear and find interesting and bring it to lesson, where I sit down with them and transcribe/ translate the music/sound on cello. This gets in some aural training as well as training in notating music which is a marvellous tool for getting kids to sight read/read faster further on down the track.