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    Issue 10 - Jazz Blues Soloing Ideas

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    swetor
    The document provides four techniques from Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, and Miles Davis for organizing jazz blues guitar solos over a 12-bar progression. The techniques involve using short repeating motives or licks that are transposed or altered to fit different chords in the progression, along with rhythmic punches or chord voicings. Examples of each technique are provided as well as backing tracks for practicing the approaches.

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    Issue 10 - Jazz Blues Soloing Ideas

    Uploaded by

    swetor
    80 views9 pages
    The document provides four techniques from Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, and Miles Davis for organizing jazz blues guitar solos over a 12-bar progression. The techniques involve using short repeating motives or licks that are transposed or altered to fit different chords in the progression, along with rhythmic punches or chord voicings. Examples of each technique are provided as well as backing tracks for practicing the approaches.

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    Issue-10-blues-soloing

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    The document provides four techniques from Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, and Miles Davis for organizing jazz blues guitar solos over a 12-bar progression. The techniques involve using short repeating motives or licks that are transposed or altered to fit different chords in the progression, along with rhythmic punches or chord voicings. Examples of each technique are provided as well as backing tracks for practicing the approaches.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    80 views9 pages

    Issue 10 - Jazz Blues Soloing Ideas

    Uploaded by

    swetor
    The document provides four techniques from Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, and Miles Davis for organizing jazz blues guitar solos over a 12-bar progression. The techniques involve using short repeating motives or licks that are transposed or altered to fit different chords in the progression, along with rhythmic punches or chord voicings. Examples of each technique are provided as well as backing tracks for practicing the approaches.

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    Issue 10 - Jazz Blues Soloing Ideas

    For many guitarists that are exploring the world of jazz improvisation, one of
    the first and biggest barriers we face after learning our scales, modes,
    chords and arpeggios is: how do you take all that information and use it to
    create good, well-organized ideas in a real-life musical situation?

    While learning how to navigate changes is a big first step in the process,
    bringing a level of cohesiveness and organization to your jazz blues solos
    can go a long way to raising the level of interest and audience interaction
    with your playing.

    In this lesson, you will explore four different ways that you can use
    techniques from Wes Montgommery, Kenny Burrell and Miles Davis to
    organize your ideas as you improvise over Jazz Blues tunes in the practice
    room, the jam room or out on the bandstand.
    Wes Style Blues Soloing Version 1

    The first approach we’ll check out comes from a technique that Wes
    Montgomery liked to use in his Jazz Blues solos as far as his organization
    of the material he played was concerned.

    Though it may look a bit complicated at first, this organizational technique


    can really take your Jazz Blues soloing to the next level, and once you’ve
    spent a bit of time to get it down, it will work itself into your playing more
    easily and organically. Here is the how the approach works from an
    organizational standpoint:

     Play a simple and easy to remember motive (lick) over the I7 chord in bar 1 of the
    jazz blues progression.
     Play that same lick in bar 2, but this time transpose it to the IV7 to fit that part of
    the progression.
     Return to the I7 chord in bar 3, and this time add a short ending phrase in bar 4 to
    bring the first four bars to a close.
     Then, play the lick again over IV7 in bar 5 of the blues, and over #IVdim7 in bar 6
    before returning to the I7 chord in bar 7 and an ending phrase to conclude the
    second 4 bars in bar 8.
     Over the final four bars of the form, play a longer, more chromatic/Bebop oriented
    ii-V-I line that cleanses the listener’s aural palette and sets up the top of the next
    chorus where you can begin this process again with a new motive (lick) as the
    basis for your ideas.

    This approach to organizing your solos can be a great way to keep the
    listener’s attention along with you as you navigate the 12-bar form, since
    they will be able to hear the motive being moved around and can follow
    your lines throughout the tune.

    As well, it is a great way to get a lot of mileage out of a small amount of


    material. Instead of having to coming up with new licks and phrases every
    bar, two bars or four bars, you simply come up with one short motive (lick)
    and one ii-V-I phrase every 12-bars and voila, you have a cool sounding
    and well-organized 12-bar Jazz Blues solo on your hands.

    Below is an example of this approach being used over a Jazz Blues


    progression in the key of F. Try learning this solo as written to get the idea
    into your hands and fingers, then take this approach to a backing track and
    try and come up with your own motives and ii-V-I licks to use with this
    technique in real time.

    Click here to listen...

    Backing Track:

    Download (right click and save target as...)


    Miles Davis Variation

    You can also use a very cool trick that Miles loved to apply to this style of
    playing, and that’s working a I7 and Im7 arpeggio over the I7 and IV7
    chords of a Jazz Blues Progression.

    To do this, you follow the same steps as you did in the first part of this
    article. But, instead of transposing the I7 motive (lick) directly to the IV7
    chord in bars 2 and 5 , you simply change the I7 chord to a IVm7 chord
    and it will fit these other chords. Just lower the 3rd from the I7 chord and it
    will fit over these other two chords.

    Here is how that works in the key of F:

    F7 = F A C Eb (1 3 5 b7)
    Fm7 = F Ab C Eb (5 b7 9 11 over Bb7)

    So you can see that when you play F7 over F7 you get all of the “basic”
    notes of the chord (1-3-5-b7) but when you play Fm7 over Bb7 you get all
    of the extension notes (minus the 13): 5-b7-9-11

    Not only is this a great way to bring color tones into your Jazz Blues solos
    over the IV7 chord, but it is always a fun way to work motives in your lines
    as you can easily alter just one note from your I7 phrase to make it fit the
    IV7 chord, allowing the listener to easily follow your ideas at the same time.

    Click here to listen...

    Backing Track:

    Download (right click and save target as...)


    Wes Style Blues Soloing Version 2

    In the following technique, you are going to bring in octaves and repeated
    rhythmic punches in order to break up your lines, create energy in your
    soloing and organize your thoughts during a full chorus of a Jazz Blues
    progression.
    Here is how this organizational approach works from a musical
    standpoint:

     Pick a rhythmic idea, usually a half-bar long or less, that you will use in bars 1, 3,
    5, 7 and 9.
     Play this rhythmic punch in bar 1 of the blues, using the root of the chord for your
    notes played in octaves.
     Play a short motive (lick) in bar 2 of the form that fits over the I7 chord, then
    repeat these first two bars exactly in bars 3 and 4.
     Play the same rhythm and lick in bars 5 and 6, though this time fitting them over
    the IV7 chord before repeated the material from bars 1 and 2 over bars 7 and 8.
     Finish the chorus off by playing the rhythmic punch over the V7 chord in bar 9
    and following it up with a ii-V-I lick that “resets” your licks and brings the listener
    around to the top of the next chorus.

    With the added rhythmic punches you can create a level of conversation
    and interaction between you and the rhythm section as the drums and bass
    can jump in with you each time you play the octaves.

    Again, try out the example written below and then bring this approach into
    your own solos using new licks, rhythms and ii-V-I phrases, writing out
    studies of this approach if needed before applying it in real time with a
    backing track and/or live band.

    Click here to listen...

    Backing Track:

    Download (right click and save target as...)


    Kenny Burrell Variation

    In a variation of the previous approach, you are going to reverse the


    technique so that you play the lick first, followed by the rhythmic
    punches second. Since Kenny Burrell loved to put chords into his solos,
    you can also bring voicings into your rhythmic punches as well as the
    octaves we saw in the last section of the lesson.
     Play a short, easy to remember lick in bar one, followed by a rhythmic chord
    punch in bar two.
     Repeat these two bars to fill in bars 3 and 4.
     Repeat the first two bars in bars 5 and 6, though this time on the IV7, before
    repeating bars 1 and 2 exactly in bars 7 and 8.
     Then, as we’ve seen in each example in this lesson, finish off the chorus with a ii-
    V-I line in the last four bars.

    Comping for yourself between phrases is not only good for organizing
    your melodic phrases, but it brings in a new texture to the mix that helps
    raise the level of interest in your solos.

    Click here to listen

    Backing Track:

    Download (right click and save target as...)


    Learning to bring a sense of organization into your solos is an important
    step for the development of any jazz guitarist. Often times we feel that our
    solos lack direction or that we are playing endless streams of notes that
    aren’t really related to each other. Like Pat Metheny says, to catch the
    attention of your listeners, it's important that your solo tells a story.

    By taking these four approaches from Wes, Mile and Kenny in the above
    examples into your playing, you will not only be able to bring a sense of
    development and organization into your Jazz Blues solo, but you will be
    able to get much more mileage out of a very small amount of material at the
    same time.

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