This month is all about the man himself, Sonny Rollins! One of my favorite saxophonists, musicians, and people on the planet. Enjoy transcribing the melody and solo on I'm An Old Cowhand from his album, Way Out West. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlatJOsLhPA https://open.spotify.com/track/0dL8xfVkwJjbnexqvMhH0r?si=zOVzhvq_QXymjDDIu4T46A … [Read more...]

This month we are going back to a more series oriented run of shows. In July we will take a look at the interval of a fourth and how it can be used in a compelling way. We start with some basic exercises to get your ears and fingers wrapped around this sound over two very common chord symbols, the minor-seventh and the major-seventh, sharp eleventh chords. No need to do these in every key quite yet, let's keep things simple and move slowly through the learning process. Enjoy the episode and … [Read more...]

This week wraps up our month of listener questions. We are taking a look at the famous Wayne Shorter composition, Footprints. In particular, we are trying to make sense of the turnaround and give ourselves a fighting chance at playing something meaningful over the complicated set of chords. Enjoy the episode and remember to grab the PDF below! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and when you donate $3 or more a month you get this PDF and every … [Read more...]

This week's episode is a natural followup to last week's and is something that is often discussed in our FB group. I also think this is one of the most essential skills to becoming a good and complete jazz musician. Vocabulary is something we all have to practice. It's a building block to being a great improviser and something we can't avoid. But how do we get that vocabulary and different sounds into our playing in a way that makes sense?? That's the million dollar question and what I try to … [Read more...]

This week is a long one. You'll have to bear with me while I dive into a long winded topic that requires much discussion. We are continuing our month of episodes directly answering questions from the community. This one is all about how to interpret, understand, and memorize chord progression from our favorite jazz standards. We talk about categorizing tunes into buckets that will help us to remember the progressions at the end of the day. This task becomes harder as we learn more tunes, but … [Read more...]

This week's episode is all about simplicity. When we see a flat 9 chord, our minds go to very complicated places that aren't always good. In this episode, I would like to show you an easier, clearer way to start incorporating this sound into your playing. If you're someone who struggles to use this sound and thinking about diminished dominant makes your head swim, you're in the right place. Enjoy the episode! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS EPISODE?? Head over to our Patreon page and … [Read more...]

This month we are going to transcribe a solo from one of the greatest musicians to ever live, Ella Fitzgerald. I'd like you to work on her scat solo over the famous composition, Take The A-Train by the great, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78vRYUMHlJU … [Read more...]

This week we are talking about a very important topic that adds on to our series studying jazz articulation. Ghost notes are crucial to both making lines a bit more natural to play, adding texture, and for many instruments, making lines much easier to accomplish! I'm providing 3 examples this week and pointing out where I would naturally ghost or de-emphasize notes to make things swing much more. This is a concept that every jazz musician should master and you can consider this your jumping off … [Read more...]

This month, we are going to take a look at the amazing Jerome Kern standard, Yesterdays through the lens of the articulation principles we have been discussing in the past 3 episodes. We have a three chorus etude and our aim is to get a bit more adventurous as we move through the composition. One important thing to remember, is to keep the basic principles of swing in mind for the entire etude. Just because we are mixing things up a bit, doesn't mean we can ignore the basics. Enjoy the etude and … [Read more...]

This week we begin talking about the off-beat accent. This is crucial in the understanding of how to play swing music and once you start to grasp this concept, you'll hear all of your favorite musicians doing it. We move from a very obvious example, to more subtle as we move through the episode. It's important to remember that all of the other concepts we have talked about still apply, even when taking this new idea into account. Enjoy the episode! WANT THE PDF THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS … [Read more...]