The Secret Behind Every Solo that You Can’t Afford to Miss
There’s a secret hidden in every great solo. You’ll find it in those old records of Louis Armstrong and those videos of Bird and Diz that you watch on YouTube. You can even hear it in the players of today like Terence Blanchard, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Tom Harrell and dozens of others. It’s a secret that ...
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7 Crucial Lessons from History’s Greatest Improvisers
I’m guessing you’ve heard of Miles Davis. That you know Louis Armstrong and have listened to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. But have you ever stopped and wondered why you know these names? Some of these masters have been gone for 40 years and some of their records are nearly 80 years old. So why ...
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7 Surprising Qualities of the World’s Best Improvisers
Wow! You’re sitting in the audience at a sold out concert and your favorite musician has just taken the stage. Flawless technique, impeccable sound, and endless creative musical lines flow from the stage and fill up the concert hall. “Unbelievable,” you think. “This musician must be super-human!” They just might be, but have you ever ...
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Becoming a Musical Character
Have you ever seen a movie where a certain character stuck with you long after the film was over? Or what about a piece of artwork that kept popping up in your mind’s eye? Maybe you’ve witnessed a speech that had the same lasting effect or attended a concert where the performer played their instrument ...
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Learning Tunes Your Way
On this site we’ve frequently written about learning tunes. This is no coincidence – learning tunes goes hand in hand with improving as an improviser. Whether you’re practicing, performing, or simply listening to a few records with some friends you’re dealing directly with tunes. Keeping this in mind, building a solid repertoire of tunes should ...
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Connecting to the Music…Wherever You Are
Music is meant to be heard live. There is no substitute for the visceral experience of sitting in an audience and soaking up a great live performance. Not only hearing the music, but feeling the physical vibrations of those melodies, chords and rhythms. Seeing the interaction between musicians as they collectively create music in the ...
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Finding a Fresh Approach to Playing the Same Old Tunes
Repetition. It’s one part of learning to improvise that’s par for the course. We practice scales over and over again until the technique is securely in our fingers, we spend hours repeatedly working out ii-V7 lines that we’ve transcribed, and we memorize the melodies and chord changes to numerous tunes until we can play them ...
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Clark Terry’s 3 Steps to Learning Improvisation
Clark Terry is one of the legends of this music. He’s played with every big name in jazz over the last half-century from the likes of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, to Ella Fitzgerald…the list could go on forever. With such a rich performing career spanning over six decades, he continues to play ...
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The Music of Thelonious Monk: 10 Tunes You Need To Know
There are certain composers in the jazz tradition…ones that have such a uniquely personal style that their compositions seem to take on a life of their own, becoming part of the jazz pantheon long after the lifetime of the writer. Composers like Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, and especially Thelonious Monk come immediately to ...
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3 More Gems From Harold Mabern
In my first 3 Gems Harold Mabern Told Me, we learned how much Harold stresses: relying on your ear, being greedy for the music, and the difference between inspiration and motivation. Harold’s full of incredible knowledge. Here’s 3 more gems from Harold to dwell on… 1.) Good music is good music Harold would play all ...
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50 Jazz Education Clips That Rock
Here’s a collection of some of the best jazz improvisation educational video clips I’ve found. They include: Pat Martino, Jerry Bergonzi, Joe Lovano, Michael Brecker, Hal Galper, Joshua Redman, Bill Evans, John Scofield, Chris Potter, Billy Taylor, Joe Henderson, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mulgrew Miller, Oscar Peterson, Terence Blanchard, Walter Bishop Jr., and Kenny Werner. Enjoy! Pat ...
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Only Listen To The Best Jazz Recordings
I used to frequent the Village Vanguard to go see my teacher Rich Perry perform all the time. As you gaze upon the walls of the Vanguard, you peer into the past…jazz legends, the inventors, live on the walls… You sit there in awe, knowing that at some point, they occupied the space you now ...
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