Tag Archives: jazz solo analysis

I Wish I Could Play Fast Jazz Solos Using This Approach

We NEED to talk about this because it is outrageous that people lie to us like this.

I am sure you have heard how Jim Hall had this text on his business card:  “Won’t play loud, can’t play fast”

Which, kind of, fits his style. His playing is relaxed with an incredibly strong time, good phrasing, and he is very melodic, but after taking his word for it all these years, I recently found out that this isn’t true at all!

He actually plays songs at more than 260 bpm, AND he does it very well adding all sorts of stuff at that tempo, how is that “Can’t play fast”?

But it is a GREAT solo with some amazing rhythms, polyrhythms, and phrasing concepts, and there are quite a few things to learn from it, so let’s have a look at that.

Great Rhythms Are Not Only 8th Note lines

Usually, the first thing you think of with an up-tempo solo is fast 8th-note lines, and that is a large part of what is often played. The Hampton Hawes solo that is before Jim Halls solo on this track is also very dense with 8th notes, but Jim Hall goes about it differently, and it is incredible how there are so many nuances to his playing and phrasing even at this tempo.

The song they are playing is Dizzy Gillespie’s Groovin’ High and this is off a Hampton Hawes album from 1958 called All night Session Vol. 1

Jim Hall is so much more about rhythm and melody than just running the changes. As you can hear then he takes his time and leaves quite a lot some space but also chooses to start on a nice chromatic leading note to create some tension.

He is also working a lot more with quarter notes than with 8th notes, which is sort of, a swing thing,

but what you first want to notice is all the detail and variation he adds to the phrasing. He is not just playing the notes, there is a lot more going on.

The first one is the very subtle trill Am7 D7,

but there are also slides on the Ebmaj7 and Gm7 C7 that follow.

Later there are some clever ways of using slides in the melodies, and you can also see that Jim Hall uses some Barry Harris strategies, and a few other tricks to play at this tempo, and I really love how he does this, drawing on both Swing and Bebop.

The Opposite of Bebop

I mentioned earlier how Jim Hall draws from swing as well as Bop, and his main influence was certainly Charlie Christian who is also in between those styles.

This whole section is using lots of repeated notes, which he can only get away with because his time is so good and the rhythmic ideas are strong enough. When he plays lines then it is all except for one spot just using Eb major.

So not digging into the changes that much and relying on other things to make it work, but as you can hear it clearly works. Mainly because the melodies are strong enough.

Is He Faking It?

You might think, well he is just faking it and making it easier for himself, but don’t think that he can’t play the changes, because he certainly nails them later in the solo, and even starts playing polyrhythms on top of the song, something that was not that common at this point in time. This is all a choice that also becomes clear later in the solo.

Swing and That Thing Pat Metheny Stole

Most of the time, I talk about Bebop in the lessons, mainly because that is the large foundation for what we consider mainstream Jazz, but as I talked about in the video on learning solos by ear, then swing phrasing also has a place in there also just to be able to play something that isn’t ONLY 8th notes. They can also be a way to get more out of your syncopation, check this out:

The first part of this is actually just a pentatonic pickup

then playing the 3rd of the chord in half notes

And then he adds an embellishment around that 3rd

But because the first part is so heavy on the beat then once he start adding up beats and then they have much more effect. Filling the whole thing up with 8th notes would not really give you that effect.

Here you can also see that he is just thinking D7 on the Am7 D7, since he comes out on the F# at the very beginning of those two bars and just plays D major pentatonic.

This is really typical both for Jim Hall’s playing in general but certainly also for this solo: Since there are fewer notes then the melodies are clearer

Then you get the Pat Metheny lick, which is then actually a Jim Hall lick that Pat Metheny stole, I am not sure which Jim Hall albums Metheny checked, but I suspect this was one of them. If anybody knows then leave a comment.

I am of course talking about the repeat notes scale run:

The next part is incredibly simple but this way of phrasing such a simple melody and also use a motif across a II V really blew my mind.

A 3-note motif on Gm7:

and how it is developed on the C7:

Let’s check out some polyrhythms and chromaticism

Jim Hall, Does It Thunk?

But first I want to just talk a little bit about Jim Hall’s sound on this which, as far as I can tell, is the same as it is on his debut tribute album just titled “Jazz Guitar” which came out in 1957, so the year before this album, All Night Session Vol 1. Both of these albums are great, this one was new to me and is in fact in a part of a series of 3 albums that all are great, also if you want to hear how Jim Hall comps a piano player, they get that to work extremely well.

As far as I can tell, it is Jim Hall playing his ES175 into a Gibson amp, and the sound is very dry. If you have seen my video on my 175 then you know that I sometimes found myself fighting against the lack of sustain. To me, that is also what you hear on this recording, the sound is compressed, but there is not a lot of sustain.

When I hear the expression Thunk, then this is the sound I think of, it may be that there is not enough bass in the sound, since it is an old recording and also because the amp is very small. If you know a better example then let me know in the comments.

Polyrhythms

So the star here is of course the descending chromatic run that is then used as a part of a 3/4 bar shifting on top of the meter.

Notice how he is emphasizing the #11 on the F7, so really going for a Lydian dominant sound there and just moving that motif around before resolving it back to Eb with a pretty simple Bb phrase and sliding into the 3rd of Eb.

Most of the stuff that he borrowed from swing until now has been about the rhythm, but I think this next phrase also really uses some swing note choices.

Swing melodies

The opening of this 2nd chorus of the solo is really emphasizing the 6th and uses the Eb,maj6 sound, which you could also describe as major pentatonic, since the major pentatonic scale really just a maj6/9 chord.

Eb major Pentatonic:

An Eb major triad:

plus a 6th and a 9th:

But the melody in this case is really going for the 6th in a way that is maybe strong than most places where you hear major pentatonic. You also want to notice that you again have the Barry Harris: Am7 D7 is just D7.

The next phrase falls in the category of making melodies with chord tones and leading notes more than thinking scales. Here it is an Eb major triad with a leading note that also really brings out the #11 on the chord. Very similar to the way I have talked about George Benson, Grant Green, and Charlie Parker sometimes construct their lines.

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How To Understand The Style of Jazz Solos

The Style of a Jazz Solo is about how the notes are used in melodies and against the chords.

John Coltrane and Lester Young are mostly playing the same notes, and they are more similar than different. Yet if you listen to Jazz, they are worlds apart.

In this video, I am going to take a phrase from Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Joe Henderson and then compare how they improvise in their solos.

This will give you a clear picture of why these styles sound so different and also some ideas on what and how to work on your own playing to sound the way you want to.

I am curious what you guys think!

Content:

0:00 Intro

0:12 4 Solos From Different Styles

0:27 Working on knowing different Styles of phrasing and improvising

0:41 #1 Lester Young – All Of Me

0:52 Analysing Lester – Melodies on top of the chords

2:15 Example #1 Slow

2:37 #2 Charlie Parker – Anthropology

2:41 Bebop – Forward motion and Harmony

3:50 Example #2 Slow

4:00 #3 John Coltrane – Take The Coltrane

4:08  Painting on a Chord Progression  – Abstraction on a Blues

5:36 Example #3 Slow

5:54 #4 Joe Henderson – Solid

6:07 Hardbop – New Melodies and Old Blues

7:38 Example #4 Slow

7:56 What Do You Think Is The Difference between the Styles

8:20 Like The Video? Check out my Patreon Page

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Jazz Guitar Solo – This Is What I Think About

What do I think in a Guitar Solo? A Jazz Guitar Solo is not as much thinking as you may assume. In this video I improvised a solo, transcribed it and then I go over the solo discussing what I thought or about or what I might have thought about when playing the solo.

This should give you some insight into how I improvise and also maybe what you should not worry about when playing a song. Jazz is a genre of music that lends itself to over-thinking.

Some of the topics I go over is how and why I think certain things like altered dominants or motifs. I also talk about the construction and thought process behind double-time lines and some polyrhythmic ideas.

Content of the video

 0:00 Intro – What I think about in a solo

0:20 The Driving a Car Analogy

0:42 Solo and Transcription.

1:17 Out Of Nowhere – The Song and the Form

1:48 The Solo

2:43 The Beginning – How to start a solo

4:04 How Target notes are a part of my playing

5:18 Ab Blues in G major?

5:49 The Added C7(#11) chord

6:33 The Gmaj7 Gm6 trick

7:09 Bm7 E7 – Thinking an Altered Dominant

8:39 I am not Pat Martino (surprised?)

8:50 A Tonic minor sound on the II chord

10:14 The Lydian Dom7th: Eb7

11:03 Double Time Line

12:31 Using Blues G Phrases in Medium Swing

14:22 A Simple Motif through a few bars

15:53 Bm Pentatonic to C7(13)

16:33 The Bm7 chord as a II chord not a III

17:25 4th note Triplet Poly Rhythm- Groups of 2 (displaced)

18:45 The Final turnaround and the ending

19:50 Blues in Medium Swing (Joe Pass)

20:54 How Not To Think About What I do

21:15 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page

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The 7 Questions You Need To Ask About A Solo You Love

We all have a jazz guitar solo that we really love and we dream of being able to play a solo like that. Often the advice that you get is to transcribe the solo and use that to learn to figure out what is going on, but that can also be a way for you to zoom in too much on the details. Often it isn’t that important if it is an E or and Eb, but it is much more important that he is developing a motif or only using short phrases or playing triplets in groups of 4.

In this video I am going to focus on what you can learn by listening to solos and focus on other things than what notes are being played, a lot of topics that are just as important and that we forget to talk about.

Hope you like it!

Content of the Video

0:00 Intro

0:12 The Problem with Transcribing

0:47 Focus on The Bigger Picture

1:22 How Long Are The Phrases?

1:37 John McLaughlin Vs Wes Montgomery

2:27 Using Phrase Length in Your Own Practice

2:44 What Is Happening With The Rhythm?

2:54 Pat Martino vs Herbie Hancock

3:27 Herbie going beyond the 8th note and in the groove phrasing

3:50 Intersesting ideas with 8th notes

4:00 Timing, Placement on the beat?

4:21 Is It Bebop Lines or Vocal-like Melodies?

4:50 Paul Desmond Vs. Pat Metheny

5:43 How Is The Development Of The Solo?

5:52 Mainstream Jazz and Dynamics?

6:05 Steve Vai vs Stan Getz

6:36 A Method for Solo Construction: Wes Montgomery

7:20 Is it In The Groove or Floating over it?

7:57 Joe Pass Vs Allan Holdsworth

8:31 Are The Phrases Connected, and How?

8:55 Wes Montgomery Vs Pat Martino

9:26 How Is The Soloist Using Space?

9:44 Use Space to Create Tension!

10:00 Like John Abercrombie!

10:28 Like The Video? Check out My Patreon Page!

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Ed Bickert – A Jazz Guitarist You Need To Know About!

Ed Bickert is the secret super hero of Jazz Guitar. He is somehow always under the surface, but you don’t want to miss checking him out! Probably most of us know him from his great playing on Paul Desmond albums like Pure Desmond and Desmond Quartet Live.

This video is on a solo on the Standard Have You Met Miss Jones, off a live trio album with Don Thompson and Terry Clarke.

What I really like about Ed Bickerts playing is his sense of melody and also how he is amazing at adding chords to his solos. But the examples in this video also highlights his use of reharmonization and cross rhythms.

I don’t actually know too much about Ed Bickert probably because he mostly has been active in Canada and haven’t appeared on that many albums as a sideman. But I really enjoy his playing. First I wanted to cover a song from the Pure Desmond album, but then I came across this great transcription on Francois LeDuc’s channel so I used that instead. You can check out Francois’ channel and Patreon in the description of this video. He has a lot of great transcriptions there!

Francois Leduc – Patreon

If you want to check out some more stuff on Ed Bickert then try to look up the two Paul Desmond albums that he play on:

Paul Desmond – Pure Desmond with Ed Bickert

And the live album with the same band:

Paul Desmond Quartet – Live

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This Is Not Bebop, But It Is A Great Coltrane Solo

It is not surprising that a Coltrane solo isn’t bebop, but it is interesting to figure out why that is the case. Understanding what types of licks or melodies are typical for a style of music is a really good description of what is going on.

The solo that I am talking about in this video is John Coltrane’s solo on the F blues – Take the Coltrane off the Coltrane/Ellington album from 1963.

In the video I am presenting an analysis of the solo with a focus on the melodies, there placement and function in the form and not only the notes that are being used. I find that it takes a more detailed view to understand a solo than just what scales are being used.

Let me know what you think?

A few thoughts on this Coltrane solo Analysis

As always music is not an exact science so this solo has a lot of traits that are really not bebop sounding but it still contains examples of normal bop lines and chromatic passing notes etc. So clearly Coltrane is rooted in that tradition even if he is moving away from it.

I am going to talk about this using three examples from the solo but it can be a good idea to check out the whole solo. There are a lot of transcriptions online so you can easily find that and listen to the solo.

Some of the things that are different are about the choice of sounds, but in my opinion it is more about how the sounds are used and the melodies than what scale. I am curious what you think?

Melodies without direction and not playing blues

What is interesting about this first part of the solo: He doesn’t play the 3rd of the chord at all for the first 8 bars, that is very different from bebop where everything is tied much more closely to the chord. Here the melodic statement is very strong and fairly long but it is intentionally vague. If you play the melody it could fit on a Cm blues just as easily as a F blues which is not really going to be the case for a Parker or Stitt solo. There is a Wes solo that does this as well and Wes would often sit heavily on the “II” sound on a V chord.

The 2nd 4 bars is a development of the first 4 but then moving with the chords, still not playing the 3rd of the chords.

So this is really about what note he isn’t playing and it becomes even more clear when we don’t have the piano comping.

Unresolving Tensions and Angular melodies

This example illustrates how the approach is much more modal. Coltrane is very often playing melodies that fit the chord but are not really functional and moving forward towards the next chord.

This is clear in the first bars where there is first an angular statement just using an F7 arpeggio. In fact using the 2nd inversion F major triad which Coltrane seems obsessed with in this solo.

A great example of how the emphasis is on sound rather than function is the Altered dominant in bars 3 and 4 of this example. Here there is a clear altered or tritone sound and the b5 is really at the center of the line, but the line is not resolved. It stops before changing and the statement on the Bb7 is unrelated to the altered line.

The last part of this example is demonstrating how the chords are interpreted. The statement on the Bb7 is turned into a motief that is moved down in half steps to give us an Am7 Abm7 Gm7 progression.

Another thing that shows how this is less functional is that the final II V is replaced with C7 Bb7 in the song taking away the main cadence of the Jazz Blues.

Super-imposed Pentatonic Scales

Coltrane doesn’t really use normal blues phrasing a lot in this solo and here he does use Fm pentatonic in a way that is really typical for everybody who came after him. I think it is important to notice that using Fm pentatonic on a Blues in F is something that is quite rare with the bop guys. Pentatonic scales are not really a part of bebop in the way they are used as a sound here.
The blues phrases of Joe Pass and Charlie Parker are quite different and much more a mix of major and minor.

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Why Coltrane is not bebop

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video or  send me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.

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