Using Chet Baker licks to develop jazz vocabulary!

This video demonstrates how you can start to develop our jazz vocabulary very quickly!

0:00 - Intro to the lesson

1:45 - Lick demonstration

2:40 - Major lick practice over backing track

3:36 - Minor lick practice over backing track

4:30 - Major & minor lick practice over backing track

5:28 - A mixture of licks taken from the 2 books played over the backing track

This video (intended for beginner improvisers) shows how you can take the II-V-I phrases of the great players and incorporate them into your own playing, through repetition and careful study. This is 'a' way to develop improvisation abilities but but no means the 'only' way. In this video the phrases are taken from Chet Baker solos. Remember! The great Clark Terry said 'It's ok to be a copy cat, as long as you copy the right cat!' Well, Chet Baker has proven to be one of the most popular Jazz Trumpeters ever. With his wonderful melodic phrases and impeccable sense of time, why not develop your improvisation abilities with the help of Chet! Of course, you can do this with any of your favourite players, I highly recommend that you transcribe (not writing anything down) the parts of their solos you want to use, this way you really internalise their phrases into your own whilst also learning their attacks, phrasing, articulation….

Imitate - Assimilate - Innovate

With this type of practice you would be imitating and starting to assimilate jazz vocabulary/language (especially if you apply phrases to a tune with more than one key centre). Something you can do from their to innovate is try to work out WHY some phrases sound so good, change them slightly but still make them sound great (this may take a while but it’s not an exact science but the more you practice it, the more progress you will make).

Warm regards, Darren.