The ability to ‘track,’ while learning to develop our phrases is of utmost importance. I encouraged you all to practice developing one bar phrases, and resting a bar in between those thoughts. Although I didn’t instruct you to move on from one bar phrases, I’m certain you all did anyway. That’s ok, because I want you now to focus on two bar phrases. After you think you have that down, move on to three bar phrases, or statements. Now in practicing building your phrases as statements, however, I want you to be strict in stopping at the end of the third bar. This will help your mental discipline in planning and developing phrasing abilities while keeping track of where you are within a chart.

Meaningful conversations can be emotional, and I hope they are. In order to express the thoughts and emotions you may think and feel, you will need to be able to draw on your jazz vocabulary.

To develop our jazz vocabulary, we must begin to become fluent on our instruments. What do I mean by becoming fluent? Just that – ‘fluent’, like you verbally speak your native language or other speaking languages that you have mastered and become ‘fluent’ in. My exposure to this concept came from the late great Oscar Peterson. In his words, in order to truly play jazz you had to be ‘fluent’ on your instrument. As instrumentalists that means we have to have committed all of the scales and their chord relationships to complete and utter memory. To begin we must master all twelve of the major scales and two of their basic modifications.

MAJOR- C Scale C D E F G A B C Chord Relationships CMaj., CMaj.7, CMaj.9

Practice these stopping on the seventh, eighth and ninth note of the scale. Know your Major scales and the rest is a snap!!

DOMINANT- C Scale C D E F G A Bb C Chord Relationships C7, C7/9, C13

Practice this scale pattern in all twelve keys. Think of this scale as a major scale with the 7th note lowered a half step.

Minor C Scale C D Eb F G A Bb C Chord Relationships Cmin., Cmin.7, Cmin.9

Again practice in all twelve keys and play the scale to the eleventh note of the scale to sound the ninth of the chord. Think of this VERY popular scale as a major scale with the 3rd and 7th note down one half step.

Now although I want you to work at practicing these scales so they can become ingrained where you can play them in your sleep, I recommend that you conduct your improvisation sessions as a separate time period of your practice.

Finally, have fun, begin to spend time each day simply ‘doodling’ on your horn, playing whatever you can think of and whatever note sequences you decide to string together. Don’t worry about the rules when you’re doing this, just play and listen. You’ll discover some things that sound really cool and begin to develop ‘licks’ that you really like. When you come across something you dig, transpose it to the other keys.

Keep jamming!!

OK, let’s start off with some basic approaches as to how we should begin to approach our practice of improvisational skills. First off, jazz improvisation is an art form that has evolved somewhat in a fairly short period of time. Jazz performers have always played what musicians term melodies. Traditionally that was something that someone wrote and thereafter others played. Louis Armstrong is one of the first to take liberty with that approach to melody. He would take the melody line and modify it slightly while soloing. Since then, artists of improvisation have taken larger and larger liberties with the original melody when creating improvisational passages or presentations. At the core, however, is creating melodic improvisation. This does not merely involve learning great technique, memorizing patterns and playing the ‘right notes.’ Rather, it is about learning the language of jazz and its style. It involves developing skills in phrasing control and utilizing creative design and intent.

When we perform jazz improvisation we do it with other musicians and hopefully in front of an audience. The improvisation itself is, however, performed within a chosen chart’s predetermined chord progressions. So, one of the first things we as improvisers have to learn is how to track our playing location within the territory we are journeying through. A good tool to practice this is to begin playing along with jazz recordings or to use recorded play-along pieces, such as those available by Jamey Aebersold. The twelve bar blues progression tracks are a good starting point to practice with. Begin by playing one bar phrases, resting a bar, playing a bar and so forth. Start and stop on the bar, don’t play beyond. To do this, I highly recommend that you tap your feet in a way that allows you to keep time. This will help you to develop your ability to track your location within a chart’s progression. Of course while doing this, begin to apply the style of jazz by adding inflections and rhythms whenever possible.

Jazz improvisation can be thought of as having a conversation with an audience. However, you’re the one doing all the talking. In conversations, we communicate, we tell stories. We ask questions and receive answers. Practice asking and answering questions and think of stories to tell your audiences.

A great book entitled, ‘Constructing Melodic Jazz Improvisation,’ written by Brian Kane goes into great depths on this topic and is one you probably want to have in your reference library to help you become a jazz superstar sooner than later. It is available through the link at the end of this article.

In addition to Brian Kane’s book, you likely will want to begin acquiring other instructional-aids as well. A good start would be Jamey Aebersold’s book entitled, ‘Volume 1, How to Play Jazz and Improvise.’ All of Jamey’s great books are available through the link below to Amazon. Buying through my site doesn’t cost you anything, but will help me continue to provide this site to the trumpet community. Keep making great music!