How to Develop Jazz Language: Learn from Chet Baker 2-5-1 with the “Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate” Approach
How to Develop Jazz Language: Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate
If you've ever found yourself staring at a set of jazz chord changes wondering what on earth you should play, you're certainly not alone.
One of the biggest misconceptions about jazz improvisation is that great improvisers are constantly inventing completely new ideas.
They aren't.
Great jazz musicians have spent years listening to other musicians, learning musical phrases, studying recordings, absorbing harmonic ideas and developing a vocabulary that they can draw upon when they improvise.
In other words, they learned the language.
One of the approaches to learning jazz that has influenced my own teaching more than anything else is associated with the great jazz educator and trumpeter Clark Terry:
Imitate. Assimilate. Innovate.
I think this is one of the most useful ways of thinking about jazz improvisation.
Imitate
The first step is simple:
Find something you love and copy it.
That might be a phrase from Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis or any other musician whose playing inspires you.
Don't just copy the notes, though.
Try to copy the music.
Listen to the rhythm.
Listen to the articulation.
Listen to the phrasing.
Listen to where the line creates tension and where it resolves.
Listen to how the phrase sits against the harmony.
If possible, sing the phrase before you play it.
This is incredibly important.
If you can hear and sing a phrase internally, you're beginning to develop a connection between your ear and your instrument.
If you're simply reading the notes from a page, you're learning something different.
Neither is useless, but the first approach gets you much closer to actually learning musical language.
Why copying is not cheating
Some musicians are uncomfortable with the idea of copying other players.
They worry that if they learn somebody else's vocabulary, they won't sound original.
I think the opposite is true.
Think about learning a spoken language.
You didn't invent the words.
You heard other people using them.
You copied them.
You learned how they fit together.
Eventually you became comfortable enough with the language to express your own thoughts.
Jazz works in much the same way.
You need vocabulary before you can become completely fluent.
So if you hear a Chet Baker phrase that makes you think, “That's exactly the sound I want,” learn it.
Don't apologise for it.
Study it.
Absorb it.
Then move on to the next stage.
Assimilate
This is where things get really interesting.
Learning a lick is not the same thing as assimilating it.
You can memorise a phrase and play it perfectly, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has become part of your musical vocabulary.
Assimilation happens when you begin to understand and use the idea naturally.
One of the best ways to start this process is to transpose the phrase through all 12 keys.
This is particularly useful with ii–V–I language.
For example, if you've learned a phrase over a ii–V–I in one key, don't leave it there.
Take it around the cycle.
Play it slowly.
Sing it.
Memorise it.
Then use it in actual tunes.
Eventually you want to get to the point where you're not thinking:
“I need to play that Chet Baker lick I learned in C.”
Instead, you hear a musical situation and the idea simply becomes available.
That's when it is becoming part of your vocabulary.
Don't just learn the notes
There's another important reason I encourage musicians to learn jazz language rather than simply collecting licks.
A phrase contains much more than its pitches.
It contains information about:
rhythm
phrasing
articulation
melodic contour
harmonic movement
tension and resolution
space
direction
For example, you might learn a Chet Baker phrase because you love the way it resolves a ii–V–I.
But after studying it carefully, you may realise that the thing you actually love most is the rhythmic shape.
Or perhaps it's the way the line approaches the third of the I chord.
Or the way the phrase starts slightly before the bar line.
Or the amount of space Chet leaves around the idea.
Those are all pieces of musical information that you can take into your own playing.
That's why copying great players is so valuable.
You're not merely collecting notes.
You're studying how they think musically.
Innovate
Eventually, you have to stop copying.
Not because imitation was wrong, but because it has done its job.
Now you start changing things.
Take a phrase you've learned and experiment with it.
Change the rhythm.
Change the ending.
Start it on a different beat.
Leave out a note.
Add a note.
Change its direction.
Use part of the phrase over another progression.
Combine it with an idea you've learned from another player.
Take the harmonic concept and create your own line from it.
This is where imitation begins to turn into innovation.
And this is why I love Clark Terry's three words so much.
Imitate → Assimilate → Innovate.
The three aren't really separate destinations.
They form a continuous process.
You imitate something you love.
You assimilate it into your vocabulary.
You innovate with it.
Then you hear something else that inspires you.
And the process begins again.
A practical way to practise a jazz lick
Here's the process I recommend.
1. Listen
Listen to the phrase repeatedly before worrying about playing it.
Get the sound into your head.
2. Sing
Sing the phrase.
If you can sing it accurately, you're beginning to internalise it.
3. Play
Play the phrase and try to reproduce the sound you heard rather than simply reading the notes.
4. Memorise
Get it away from the page.
You want to be able to play it without having to look at the notation.
5. Transpose
Take the phrase through all 12 keys.
This is where a short lick can become a serious practice exercise.
6. Apply
Find the progression in real tunes and use the idea while improvising.
Don't keep everything trapped inside a practice room.
7. Experiment
Once you've absorbed the phrase, start changing it.
This is the beginning of developing your own voice.
Why ii–V–I language is so useful
The ii–V–I progression is one of the most important harmonic movements in jazz.
That makes ii–V–I language particularly valuable.
If you develop a vocabulary of strong ideas for these progressions, you suddenly have material that can be applied to an enormous number of tunes.
And you don't need hundreds of them.
I'd much rather see a player take one great ii–V–I phrase, learn it properly, transpose it through all 12 keys, memorise it and use it creatively than collect dozens of phrases that never make it into their actual playing.
Depth beats quantity.
Learning from Chet Baker
Chet Baker is a particularly rewarding musician to study because his improvising often sounds incredibly natural.
His lines can be melodic, economical and beautifully connected to the harmony.
There is a lot to learn from that approach.
When studying Chet, don't simply ask:
“What notes did he play?”
Ask:
“Why does this sound so good?”
Where does the phrase begin?
Where does it resolve?
What chord tones are being targeted?
How does the rhythm create movement?
Where does Chet leave space?
How does the line connect one chord to the next?
These questions take you beyond transcription and into musicianship.
And once you start asking those questions, you can apply the same process to every great jazz musician you study.
Two examples from my Chet Baker 2–5–1 books
I've created my Chet Baker-inspired 2–5–1 books around exactly this approach.
The books contain 10 major and 10 minor ii–V–I ideas, with the material presented in all 12 keys.
Rather than trying to work through everything at once, I'd recommend choosing one idea and following the process described above.
Listen.
Sing.
Play.
Memorise.
Transpose.
Apply.
Then innovate.
Below are two examples from the books — one major ii–V–I idea and one minor ii–V–I idea.
Major ii–V–I
Don't simply play this phrase from beginning to end.
First, listen to how the line moves through the harmony.
Identify where the tension occurs and where the phrase resolves.
Sing it.
Then play it in all 12 keys. The book has 10 licks in ALL 12 keys
Once you've memorised it, try changing the rhythm or creating a different ending.
The goal isn't simply to reproduce the lick perfectly.
The goal is to understand what makes the idea work.
Minor ii–V–I
Apply exactly the same process to this minor ii–V–I idea.
Learn the sound first.
Then learn the notes.
Transpose it.
Use it in tunes.
And finally, start experimenting with it.
At that point, you're no longer simply learning a lick.
You're learning a piece of jazz language.
You don't need to sound like Chet Baker
This is perhaps the most important thing to remember.
The goal of studying Chet Baker isn't to become a Chet Baker impersonator.
The goal is to discover what you can learn from him.
You might take a melodic idea from Chet, combine it with a rhythmic concept you've learned from another player, change the articulation and then develop the idea in a completely different direction.
Eventually, the original source becomes less important.
The idea has become part of your musical vocabulary.
That's the real purpose of imitation.
You borrow.
You absorb.
You transform.
And eventually, you create.
Your own jazz language is built from everything you absorb
Nobody develops a musical voice in isolation.
Every great improviser has been influenced by other musicians.
The important thing is what happens to those influences once they enter your playing.
Listen widely.
Study deeply.
Copy the musicians you love.
Learn phrases.
Transpose them.
Use them in tunes.
Understand the harmony.
Experiment with them.
And gradually, those influences begin to combine in ways that are uniquely yours.
That's why I keep coming back to those three words:
Imitate. Assimilate. Innovate.
They're not just a method for learning jazz language.
They're a way of thinking about how a musical voice develops.
Want more Chet Baker 2–5–1 language?
I've put together two Chet Baker-inspired 2–5–1 books containing 10 major and 10 minor ideas in all 12 keys.
The collection is also available in bass clef, so the material isn't limited to treble-clef players.
If you'd like to take this approach further, you can explore the books here:
And you can browse the complete collection of Jazz Language Lab books here:
The important thing isn't how many licks you collect.
It's how deeply you learn the ones you choose.
Learn the language. Absorb it. Make it your own.
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