What NO ONE Teaches About Playing Jazz

Are you tired of spending hours on online jazz lessons that never improve your playing? That’s because there’s one thing almost nobody teaches about playing jazz.

In this video, I’ll show you the short flexible patterns pros actually use, and how to make them your own so your solos finally flow naturally instead of sounding like a copy-paste mess of other people’s lines.

The Problem With Learning Licks

You’ve probably seen this a hundred times — a lesson teaching you a great-sounding line like this:

It sounds great. But you can’t use it without sounding like you’re forcing it into your solo, and it never fits with the phrases you played before and after.

But here’s the thing — pro players don’t actually work this way. Let me show you how Wes Montgomery does it — it’s more flexible, and it’ll make your solo sound like you’re telling a story.

Wes’ Favorite Jazz Lick

Check out this lick — first I’ll play the full version, and then we’ll zoom in on what’s actually important. This is from Wes’ solo on Four On Six, off The Incredible Jazz Guitar album,

So not the most famous version, which is on Smokin’ At The Half Note.

Now, the part that matters is this last phrase on Bbm7 Eb7.

It is a very simple way to both have the transition from Bbm7 to Eb7 and then Wes includes that beautiful skip up to the root, which is Eb here.

Wes loves that short melody, and already in the next chorus on the Cm7 F7 bar, you hear this:

This is the same transition from Cm7 to F7, and the same interval skip, he just leads into it in a different way.

Another variation of the same phrase, this one from his solo on Satin Doll. This one is on Em7 A7:

Here he adds a trill, but it is still the same type of transition and that same skip up to the root of the dominant from the 3rd.

To make it easy, check out how you can play it in C major on Dm7 G7:

Wes doesn’t repeat long licks from solo to solo, but these short phrases come back again and again, even in the same solo.

He can change them a bit every time, and you don’t really notice it’s the same thing.

And that’s exactly how you should use it — as a building block in your lines. Let me show you.

Making It Your Favorite Lick!

The great thing about this short phrase is that it is not just scales and arpeggios; it is a melody, and the interval skip makes it more exciting.

The way you get this into your playing is by making lots of lines where you combine it with the stuff you normally play, but you need to do it the right way.

Just turning on a track and trying to jam it in everywhere won’t work.

Instead, you work on composing lines.

You could use the Wes block to create a line like this:

So I am adding this phrase in front of it,

using the block to get to G7,

and add a chromatic enclosure to move to Cmaj7, adding a short line there as well.

What is great about this phrase is that it opens up the rhythm and changes things up.

Make sure that you create phrases using stuff you really play, and keep in mind that writing down the phrases is not as much the exercise as just getting things to fit, so the more lines you create, the easier it gets — and you will quickly be able to use them in your own solos like this:

If you want to work through these examples without memorizing them off the video, so you can really dig into these Wes variations, grab the free PDF — there’s a link in the description.

Remember how Wes also changed the block itself? You can do that as well.

Creating Your Own Variations

If I move the variations Wes used to C major, you have the original:

The one that is starting on the root of the Dm7 chord:

And the one with the trill, which is easier to play if you move to this position:

From here, you can start combining these with chromatic enclosures and arpeggios to build your own longer lines.

Here I am adding in a G7b9 as well, which is a nice color:

Or this example using a chromatic enclosure and the trill version, which also adds more variation in the rhythm:

And you can try composing lines with these or make your own new variations:

Or a chromatic twist:

These all work and sound great when you put them to use!

Learning to create strong jazz lines from simple building blocks is also what I teach in my Jazz Guitar Roadmap Course, where this is all introduced step-by-step, and you learn to use it on an actual standard, so it really gets into your playing. It has already given 7500 other students a solid foundation — check out the link in the description.

You already saw how much you can do with a single block, but finding good ones can be pretty tricky. Let me show you a great resource for this.

Joe Pass’ Jazz Vocabulary Bible

If you could only study one book about jazz guitar, this is the one. It’s constantly recommended by people like John Scofield and Mike Stern — that alone should tell you something.

The book I am talking about is Joe Pass Guitar Style

,

And what most people will also tell you is to start by learning the solos at the end of the book.

These transcriptions of Joe’s solo playing are a shortcut to developing real jazz phrasing and vocabulary, but they are also the best resource for finding blocks similar to the Wes Montgomery phrase.

Here are two bars from one of the solos:

This example is from an F Parker blues.

But check out how this phrase from the 2nd half of Bar 1

works great in a Cmaj7 lick like this:

Or naturally becomes a Dm7 line in this example:

In bar 2, you can also take the A7alt phrase:

Immediately, that is a great Dm7 phrase like this, similar to the kind of phrase Grant Green might play:

But it also sounds great as a Cmaj7 phrase:

Or even a great G7alt line on a II V I:

And that’s just two bars — the whole book is full of them.

All the phrases from this video are in the free PDF — so you’ve got everything you need to start leveling up your solos right away. Link in the description.

Like this, you can start building solos the way the pros actually do. Forget the long licks and start building real jazz vocabulary — one block at a time.

Barry Harris’s Bebop Method

Joe Pass and Wes are both great resources for learning jazz guitar. Another essential teacher is Barry Harris — especially the exercise I cover in this next video, which helps you develop vocabulary, learn tunes, and improve your rhythm.

Check it out!

Learn Jazz make music.

https://jenslarsen.nl/this-barry-harris-exercise-will-save-you-years-but-most-ignore-it/

Get the PDF!

You can also download the PDF of my examples here:
https://mailchi.mp/jenslarsen/g2sl1biwde

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