I just wanted to turn you guys on to a jazz guitarist that is local and well known in my area, Oakland, CA. Many of you may be unaware of who he is but Calvin is such a good player that I felt I had to let you know about his playing. He’s been around for a very long time and he’s played with the best in the business. I had the pleasure of going to his house and taking a lesson with him. (It was was certainly worthwhile).  Calvin has an excellent command of the instrument but plays in such a relaxed, effortless manner.  In fact, his playing and the way he phrases reminds me of Wes Montgomery. Every time I hear him play, he teaches me the value of patience…the importance of letting a solo develop and breathe—-the opposite of most jazz guitarists who often try to be flashy and rush to play as many notes as they can.  The following is a video of him playing “I’ll Remember April”.

You can check him out at: www.calvinkeys.com for more info about him.

By the way, his “Calivinesque” album is just awesome.  Highly recommended!!  You can check it out here: http://cdbaby.com/cd/calvinkeys

Thanks Calvin for being such an inspiration!

Leon

Ok, I’m back — Helping you build your jazz vocabulary. Here’s a nice jazz guitar lick that can be played over a Dm7 chord.  Also, try it over G7 or other chords in the key of C.

To download the pdf chart for this lick just click below and sign up for my email newsletter:

Enjoy.

Leon

Check this out:

Learn Jazz Guitar directly from George Benson

Jazz Guitar tips from the man himself!

Enjoy,

Leon

In one of my previous articles, I discussed how important it is to develop a jazz vocabulary so that you actually start sounding like a jazz player instead of just playing up and down scales.  I mentioned the importance of learning licks and phrases.  But even if you know some licks, it can still be difficult to improvise in a natural and melodic way.  That’s why I highly advocate singing what you play. It’s an excellent way to improve your solos.

So how does singing make you improvise better?

When you sing what you play, your solos will take on more of a vocal quality—you will tend to hold individual notes longer, you’ll probably play repeated notes more often, and the melodies that you play will be tend to be less complex.  These are good things, especially for players who over-play.

Most importantly, you will increase your use of silence and improve your phrasing.  Clearly, if you’re singing what you play, you’re going to run out of breath at some point.  Jazz guitar players are notorious for playing too many notes—never stopping to give themselves(or the audience) a break.  Horn players, on the other hand, use silence throughout their solos because they have to pause and take a breath.  The result is that horn players’ solos tend to sound more natural and conversational.  So, by forcing yourself to sing what you play, you’ll be able to incorporate some of this horn-like phrasing into your playing.

Singing also helps you to create a closer connection between the notes you hear in your head and those on the guitar. This improves your ear and listening skills.  Finally, you’ll find yourself playing in ways that you would not normally play. Great for keeping yourself from getting stuck in a rut.

By the way, all great improvisers do this in some form or another.  Some sing out loud while they’re playing, like George Benson, some hum or sing in their head but they are all singing in some way— believe me. I have a number of jazz records where you can hear ON THE RECORDING the inadvertent grunts and singing of jazz pianists and guitarists as they improvise.

Now if you’re new to this concept, it may feel a little weird to be singing out loud.  Especially, if you’re not used to it. But the truth is that it doesn’t matter whether you can sing well or not.  The goal is to use singing to improve your phrasing and to help you improvise more naturally. In my experience, the results have been VERY positive.

Take a look at the following video which I previously posted in my  Using Licks and Phrases in Your Solos article:

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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