JAZZ IMPROVISATION

Did you know that a few wrong notes played with great timing over a tight groove will often go by unnoticed by many, whereas the opposite, a great melodic line played with bad timing will be apparent even to most musically uneducated ears? In this lesson I demonstrate...

If you watched and enjoyed my 18 Bebop Licks videos by both Charlie Parker and Wes Montgomery, you’ll love this one. And although Grant Green shouldn’t need an introduction, let me just say that he was one of the most recorded jazz guitarists, particularly during the...

Do you ever feel like you’re playing the same old ideas over and over again every time you take a solo? If you answered yes, you’re not alone! As a matter of fact, when I graduated from Berklee College of Music in the early 80’s, I was one of those players that knew...

Have you ever transcribed or simply tried to analyze a solo by one of your favorite players and found that in more than one measure, there were notes that absolutely did not relate to the prescribed chord?  Strangely enough, you listen to the recording in context and...

If you want to grow your bebop vocabulary, you need to resort to its most respected source…Charlie Parker! And that is exactly what I did for this lesson. I carefully analyzed various Charlie Parker heads and extracted 18 licks which I believe embody the essence of...

This post includes the 3 Part Series: "5 Practice Habits of Great Jazz Musicians". Part 1 covers Habit 1: "Great Jazz Musicians Push The Envelope" and explains how they use the concept of "deliberate practice". Part 2 covers Habit 2: "Great Jazz Musicians Are Always...

When teaching rhythms in jazz improvisation there is an important 2 note rhythm cell that very, very few players seldom mention. Nonetheless, in this lesson I tell you all about it so you too can start using! And believe me when I say...it is guaranteed to make your...

If you’re like most guitarists who got into jazz coming from a rock-blues background, and you still play a solid body, you’ve probably entertained the question..."To bend or not to bend?” After all, string bending has been an integral aspect of playing electric...

So you got a copy of a great solo transcription by one of your favorites, but there’s no TAB! How do you begin to decide where to play it on the fretboard, what fingerings to use, and how to extract improvisational vocabulary from it? In this lesson I show you how I...

In this second and final video of this lesson series, I continue to dispel many myths and half-truths about jazz improvisation. If you enjoyed the first one, this one goes even deeper as I clear up some common theoretical misconceptions! It includes several topics...

The Internet has some good info about playing jazz, but then there's a lot of myths and half-truths. And if you're just getting started with jazz improvisation or you've been at it for a while and feel like you're not making significant progress, who knows...some of...

In this lesson I teach you how to add new textures to your jazz solos by inserting “diad lines” in the midst of your single note lines. In case you’re not familiar with this term, “diad lines”, they are simply 2 note phrases, for the most part in 3rds. Unlike triads,...