Learn Jazz Guitar

By Dave Fox, Pianist

In this article Dave Fox gives us jazz guitarists some insight into how to play with a piano player:

I am a small-group leader who likes a rhythm section to consist of guitar, bass and drums. What’s unusual about that, you ask? Nothing – except for the fact that I play piano. Pianists are supposed to like playing with horn players, not guitar players. The reason for this is that, since the piano and the guitar are both chord-playing instruments, there is a real danger that there can be too many chords at the same time, resulting in too thick a sound that takes away from the melody and the solo. Or, so goes the thinking of many players I know.

But, I can’t help it. I like guitar players – I like the fact that they can rhythmically groove in a way that horn players just cannot do. This may be due to the fact that a guitar has a built-in capacity for being strummed. Things that can be strummed usually groove well with the beat, because of all the different possible ways that they can be strummed. Both guitarists and pianists are practiced in the art of strumming and, consequently, groove in a kindred way. Because of all this, I like to play in quartet situations with a guitar player.

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Many of you may not have heard of Nick Colionne. He’s a smooth jazz guitarist that plays in a similar style to that of Norman Brown and George Benson. Check him out at www.nickcolionne.com.  But I would say that in some ways, he’s much more influenced by Wes Montgomery than Norman.

I recently stumbled across an excellent set of 6 videos filmed by Gibson where Nick does a clinic demonstrating the Epiphone Broadway. I wasn’t sure if he was promoting the Epiphone Broadway ($799) or the Epiphone Broadway Elitist ($1999). I figure it’s the lower priced version since he doesn’t say the word “elitist” when he’s discussing the guitar.

He plays Epiphone guitars exclusively and his goal here is to get you interested in purchasing the guitar but he does a lot of good playing. On some of the songs he plays, you can just close your eyes and it sounds like you’re listening to Wes.  In fact, he plays the Wes Montgomery version of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”.

Definitely listen to the whole thing because there many VERY good tidbits of information about how he approaches playing jazz guitar dispersed throughout all the videos.  There’s also a question and answer session that’s very good. If you listen closely and really think about some of the things he’s saying, you’ll learn a lot. A very wise man indeed.

P.S., This should further prove that smooth jazz guitarists CAN and DO play straight-ahead jazz and do it well!

Enjoy,

Leon

Part 1

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Here are few videos of Bireli Lagrene, an amazing European jazz guitarist who came to prominence in the 1980s. He is mostly known for his mastery of the Django Reinhardt gypsy jazz guitar style. But as you can see below, he has mastered the straight-ahead bop style as well.  Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Bireli:

“Biréli Lagrène was born on September 4, 1966, in Soufflenheim, (Bas-Rhin) in a traditional gypsy family and community. He started playing the guitar at the age of four. When, at the age of eight, he covered Django Reinhardt’s repertoire, his relatives were already calling him a child prodigy. Winning a gypsy music festival (in Strasbourg) at the age of twelve gave him the opportunity to tour in Germany and, later, to record his live performance on the double LP Route to Django. Offered a chance to leave for the United States, Lagrène met the greatest jazz musicians of the international scene such as Stéphane Grappelli, Benny Goodman, Benny Carter, etc. In 1984, he met Larry Coryell in New York. Later, he was introduced to bassist Jaco Pastorius and ventured with him into jazz fusion. Together, they toured Europe, which contributed a great deal to Lagrène’s musical emancipation. Back to a more traditional style, Lagrène recorded Gipsy Project and Gipsy Project and Friends in 2001.”

Enjoy

P.S. Make sure you check out the last video where he is playing at home. He makes a few mistakes. (See my article about Getting Through Your First Jazz Guitar Performance).  Like I said, even the pros make mistakes. But it’s funny. Even his mistakes are awesome!

Leon

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Just wanted to let you know that I added more jam tracks to the jam tracks section. 

I’ve updated the drums on all of the tracks.  The tracks use a real sampled drummer.  I must say it swings really hard for a machine.  Very realistic.

Click this link to go there directly: Jam Tracks

The main jam tracks link is at the very top of the page for future reference.

Enjoy,

Leon

Recently, a visitor to my site asked me the following question:

“My Instructor wants me to sit in with a group of guys at small gig. I don’t think i’m ready for this because I still make too many mistakes.  I respect your wisdom so what do you think?”

I’ve decided to answer this question publicly for the benefit of everyone here.

So here’s the deal.

Every player goes through this at some point . It’s a typical scenario. You’ve just gotten to the point where you can play a few songs and licks.  Mostly you’ve been playing and practicing at home or with a couple friends that are about at your level. Maybe you jam for little while with your guitar teacher. But for the most part you’re playing and practicing at home with jam tracks.

Now someone asks you to sit in at a gig or a jam session even though you’re not feeling really comfortable with the quality of your playing.  So what do you do?

The answer is simple.  You sit in at the gig or jam session anyway. Even though you feel that you’re not ready.  How? Why?  Keep reading:

1. Pushing past the Fear and Getting out of Your Comfort Zone is Essential to Your Development as a Jazz Guitarist

I remember one of the first times I made the decision to go to a jam session.  I had been practicing one or two songs for a while and thought I was pretty comfortable with the songs but I hadn’t performed them in front of anybody.  It was pretty much Jamey Aebersold CDs and me at home. I was pretty sure I knew the songs.  Yet, I still hesitated to go to the session.  Why was I hesitating?

So, I decided to sit down and take some time to really think about what was holding me back and I realized the following: I was worried that 1) I was going to make embarrassing mistakes at the session and 2) because of that people would think that I was a poor guitar player.  The bottom line was that fear was holding me back.

Then, I remembered an excellent book that I had purchased a long time ago called: “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway” by Susan Jeffers.  In chapter 2 of the book she talks about certain truths about fear. I’ll summarize what she says about it:

Fear of an unfamiliar situation will never totally go away as long as your growing and challenging yourself.

And the only real way to reduce the fear, nervousness, anxiety or whatever you want to call it….is to get out there and DO IT ANYWAY.

You have to push through the fear because that’s a whole lot better than continuing to live with a feeling of helplessness….

So for us jazz guitar players this means preparing as much as we can but after a reasonable amount of preparation, we participate in jam sessions, gigs, and other opportunities to play even when we feel that we aren’t “ready” because we know that these experiences will help us to grow and learn. We even play sometimes when we don’t even fully know certain songs because we are improvisers and sometimes the situation calls for us to do this.

We believe that every time we make a conscious decision to push forward despite being 100% comfortable or not knowing exactly what’s going to happen, we are building a track record of success so that when we face similar challenging situations in the future we can always look back and say, “Hey this gig might be a little more challenging than the last one but I’ve done challenging gigs before so I believe that I can make through this one successfully.” We understand that pushing through the fear is much better than the alternative which is to avoid gigs and playing situations because deep down inside were worried about what others will think about how we play.

So, to continue the story, after I read a few pages of the book and really thought about what what my goals were, the decision was easy.  Nothing was going to stop me. I indeed went to that jam session and played the one or two songs that I knew.  Everything went pretty smoothly.   But there was more of a challenge in store for me because when I finished playing one of the songs I knew, the leader of the band asked me to stay on and play a tune called, “My Romance”.

I had never even heard of this song before. I said, “I don’t know this tune”. He said, “That’s ok, just play anyway”. Well, I didn’t really have much time to worry about what was going to happen. I mean what was I going to do?  Get off the stage and say no I can’t do it!???  So, I just looked at the chart over the piano player’s shoulder to see what key the song was in and when it came time for my solo, I just played from the heart and relied on my ear.  And I tell  you what, the people in the audience clapped when I was done!

Did I play some wrong notes and make mistakes? YES. But so what, I accomplished my goal. I faced the fear and played the songs I knew and even a song that I had never heard before. And I made out alive. I didn’t have a heart attack or pass out or anything like that.  And what a great feeling that was!

That experience taught me a lot about what you can really accomplish by pushing through all the fear by following your heart and just doing it anyway.  This takes me to the next point which is that:

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I’m a real big fan of Latin jazz and it’s great to hear awesome jazz guitarists like George Benson play in this style. Here are a few videos showing him play 3 Latin tunes in a smooth jazz guitar style: Brazilian Stomp, Affirmation and El Mar.

1. Brazilian Stomp, a tune he recorded with Earl Klugh in the 80’s.

2. Affirmation, a cover of Jose Feliciano’s tune. Benson’s version appeared on the Breezin’ album. This video performance was played at Musikladen, in Frankfurt in 1977. 

3. El Mar. Also played live at Musikladen, Frankfurt 1977. He plays some simply amazing stuff here. It’s so fluid and natural and fast!! I would say that the 70’s were the time where he was at height of his powers. He’s playing a GB10 set up perfectly with extremely low action. I’m looking to buy one of these one of these days. Also, there’s some great camera shots of his picking hand. Notice how he’s holding the pick. 

Until next time,

Leon

I just created a section called “Jam Tracks”. See the link at the top of the page. Here, I will periodically post backing tracks of popular jazz standards. I may also post some of my own jam tracks there.

I have already posted one jazz standard. Check it out.

Leon

The first video in this lesson demonstrates how to play a 2-5-1 phrase in the key of F. Gm7-C7-FMaj7. The concept that I used to create this phrase is the same as with the phrase that we learned last time. I’m basically using a Gm7 arpeggio and then transitioning to a diminished substitution to the C7 and then resolving to chord tones in the FMaj7. I like using diminished because it’s a great way to start using some tones outside of the harmony without sounding too outside.

Video 1 – 2-5-1 Lick in the Key of F

You can download a pdf chart for this phrase at the end of this lesson.

In the second video, I’m improvising over a 2-5-1-6 chord progression also in the key of F….

Now, I pretty much played this solo off the top of my head. But my goal here was to give you and idea of how I inserted the lick from the first video into an improvisation. Also, instead of using a swing groove, I’m using a R&B Smooth jazz backing track that I created. (By the way, this backing track will be included with my upcoming DVD).

Video 2 – 2-5-1-6 Solo – Key of F

I’d like to make 2 important points:

1. Don’t get stuck on Swing.

The reason I’m playing this solo over a funk groove is first because…well, I like it. That’s obvious. But also because to become an effective jazz player you have to be able to play various styles effectively. Even bebop players like Dizzy Gillespie were masters at playing other styles like Latin, Afro-Cuban, etc.. And modern jazz players play all kinds of rhythmic grooves… even grooves with unusual time signatures like 5/4 or 7/8. If all you practice is swing, you’ll never be prepared when your friends say for example, “Hey let’s play a funk version of Take Five”.

2. Always Playing a Lick the Way you Learned it, is a Recipe for Disaster

If you watch the second video carefully, you’ll see me play this lick maybe 2 or 3 times. See if you can find where I play it. It’s recognizable. But you’ll also notice I did NOT play it like I showed it to you in the first video. In fact, the ways that I played it during the solo varied from each other. Why? The simple answer is, I felt like doing that way. And that’s exactly how it should be when you learn and play phrases and licks. It’s not enough to simply regurgitate what learn during a solo. To be a true improviser, you have to be able to manipulate phrases when you want to for any number of reasons…..For example… You’re girlfriend left you or… you dropped your pick and you still want to play the lick but now you have to use your thumb…..the drummer ate his Wheaties this morning and decides to play the song 50bpm faster than you anticipated….you break your high E string during a song where you really liked to use that lick.

These are all situations where you either might want to or have to change the lick somehow while playing it. Don’t be a one trick pony. Don’t be the guitarist who can only play that lick when the moon and 2 other stars have formed a perfect right angle. Believe me, perfect times like that will rarely if ever happen.

I see a number of guitarists out there that can play 1,000 licks all over the fretboard with amazing precision. And looking at them is impressive. But the players that truly impress me are players like Wes Montgomery who could just take a few simple licks or ideas and just work and rework those ideas throughout the course of a solo while at the same time telling an amazing story.

What type of player would you want to be? I don’t know about you but I’d take the latter any day.

Until next time,

Leon

Click the link below to gain free access to a downloadable PDF chart for this lick:

In the following video, I show how to play a nice 2-5-1 phrase in the key of C. Dm7-G7-Cmaj7. The ii-V-I progression is the most popular chord progression in all of jazz. It’s critical that you learn how to play over this progression. Take you time with this lick. Rhythmically, it might be a little challenging.

Click the link below to gain free access to a downloadable PDF chart for this lick:

Leon

Below is a short video clip of me playing the song, “Just Friends” when I was testing my video setup.