Progressive List of Solos that improved your 'vocab' ...

[jamiehenderson1993]

What are the best jazz solos to get vocabulary from?

[jameslovestal]

These two tunes:

Mean to Me (Barney Kessell \ Poll Winners).

Watch What Happens (Jimmy Raney Live in Toyko).

[enalnitram]

These two tunes:

Mean to Me (Barney Kessell \ Poll Winners).

Watch What Happens (Jimmy Raney Live in Toyko).

Preach!

[starjasmine]

The big reveal is at 2:23 "I didn't worry too much about learning the whole solo, I just learned up until a point where he started playing something really fast and difficult."

Until he said that, I was thinking that this list of 100 tunes was a lifetime of practice, and then some.

So stealing ideas from great players & great solos? Absolutely a great idea. A ranked list? Seems a bit ambitious, but I will toss out a couple of ideas.

If you are just starting out, a practical goal would be to focus on vocabulary that is within your reach technically. Although the ability of today's tools to slow audio and video by virtually any amount without changing pitch certainly expands the landscape of what's practical, you probably don't want to start with "Vulcan Worlds". Pick something easy and achievable instead of something difficult and frustrating.

Decades ago, when I got the music college assignment to transcribe a solo in standard notation, I wasn't very familiar with Charlie Christian, other than having heard from many people that he was one of the greats. So I listened to a ton of Charlie Christian till I found a solo that was within my reach technically and had some vocabulary that I wanted to learn. My first transcription was the first chorus of his solo in I Found A New Baby:

I really loved Steely Dan and Larry Carlton, so for my next transcription assignment, I chose Larry Carlton's solo from Kid Charlemagne:

I wrote out the whole thing; some years later, I got the chance to meet Larry backstage at a concert and he signed my transcription :-)
I've copped a ton of Larry's licks, transcribed entire solos, and learned many of his own tunes as well as many of his signature Dan pieces over the years.

I also did a TON of transcribing as part of cover band work. Learning to play the recorded solos on a zillion pop, rock, funk, soul and country tunes taught me a lot; even when I didn't like the song, there was something to learn. In some cases, I wrote charts and in others I committed straight to (muscle) memory.

I also learned a bunch of GASB tunes accompanying singers and playing in wedding bands.

My most ambitious transcription would probably be Pat Martino's solo on Close Your Eyes; I posted it on this forum some time ago. I wanted to learn to think like Pat; although I wouldn't dream of saying that I play "like" him, I certainly learned a lot about his approach by copying these lines, analyzing them, and learning to play them.

This took MONTHS of effort... just doing a little bit every day. Well worth it.

My stylistic appetite is pretty varied; these days I'm chipping away at Joe B's version of Let the Good Times Roll. It's a whole different set of harmonic/stylistic ideas and a whole different approach mechanically than what I'm used to. Not writing this one out, just learning the licks and the style.

[pamosmusic]

I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but all of Jim Hall's Jazz Guitar album.

Also I transcribed a ton of Charlie Christian stuff. That stuff is pure vocabulary, and can be surprisingly modern if you keep all the shapes and devices and just trade, say, a root structure C major triad on a C7 for ... I don't know, a D augmented or whatever your flavor is.

[AllanAllen]

I did the whole Chet Baker, But Not For Me intro. I don't do many solo transcriptions, none all the way through.

[jamiehenderson1993]

I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but all of Jim Hall's Jazz Guitar album.

Also I transcribed a ton of Charlie Christian stuff. That stuff is pure vocabulary, and can be surprisingly modern if you keep all the shapes and devices and just trade, say, a root structure C major triad on a C7 for ... I don't know, a D augmented or whatever your flavor is.

Thanks for this - other than Jim Hall, Charlie Christian (and Clifford Brown!) who would you say are some other players who are "Pure Vocabulary" would you say?

Thanks

[pamosmusic]

Thanks for this - other than Jim Hall, Charlie Christian (and Clifford Brown!) who would you say are some other players who are "Pure Vocabulary" would you say?

Thanks

Chet is really great. Wes is all great lines.

Honestly for transcribing, I like transcribing stuff that isn’t really vocab heavy.

Miles, for example. Grant Green has a lot of great licks but also just so really awesome rhythmic stuff.

I don’t think there’s any way to internalize that phrasing and breath and stuff without transcribing, so I like doing that stuff a lot.

[AllanAllen]

Thanks for this - other than Jim Hall, Charlie Christian (and Clifford Brown!) who would you say are some other players who are "Pure Vocabulary" would you say?

Thanks

Charlie Parker is pure vocabulary. You could almost pick any 4 bars he played and have a nice lick.

[pamosmusic]

Charlie Parker is pure vocabulary. You could almost pick any 4 bars he played and have a nice lick.

Paul Desmond?

[AllanAllen]

Paul Desmond?

Lester Young?

[MMT]

Hello! Thanks for sharing my video! I'm glad you got something out of it!

I would also be interested to hear what solos were really helpful to other people in their development, so I might check out the suggestions here!

[MMT]

The big reveal is at 2:23 "I didn't worry too much about learning the whole solo, I just learned up until a point where he started playing something really fast and difficult."

Until he said that, I was thinking that this list of 100 tunes was a lifetime of practice, and then some.

It's been a while, but as far as I remember the ones I only played parts of and not the entire solo were number 1,3,5,7,8,9,16,21. I may be forgetting one or two. So it was just in the beginning that I played some of them partially, but after a while I decided to do the full solos every time. Although most of the solos I picked were around 1 minute or shorter.
Thanks for watching!

[Question]

MMT, that is a very ambitious project! Very inspiring.

After hearing the great Charlie Christian solo in the video posted on this thread by Starjasmine, I decided to transcribe it today.

I know that the point of this thread is about doing the transcribing yourself, but maybe this little cheat-chart will get someone motivated to get started and do it themselves.

[jamiehenderson1993]

Hello! Thanks for sharing my video! I'm glad you got something out of it!

I would also be interested to hear what solos were really helpful to other people in their development, so I might check out the suggestions here!

Ah! Great! Thanks for making this video!

[GuyBoden]

I spent a long time in the early 1980's listening to Miles Davis' Live Evil album and copying Miles' trumpet licks on guitar. (All forgotten now.)

[rpjazzguitar]

I don't recommend my approach, but here's what I've actually done.

I have never transcribed a solo, even though I can read and write music. I'm so slow at it that it's not much fun.

I've occasionally figured out fragments of solos that caught my ear. I don't write them down. I try to understand what's going on, which usually turns out to be X arp (or scale) over Y chord.

I only use a handful of licks. I got most of them by seeing/hearing another guitarist play the lick right in front of me.

I focus on trying to make melody that respects the harmony. Often, scat singing in my mind and trying to play that. I generally know the chord tones and the tonal center at any given moment. When that fails, I tend to fall back on scales, which isn't great.

So, no list of solos that I have learned. Of course, I've listened to a lot of jazz.

Anybody else done it this way or similar?

[supersoul]

Anybody else done it this way or similar?

Pretty much the same as you. Sometimes I play along with a record and if something catches my ear I'll go back and try to figure it out. It can be any instrument, even something the drummer did. But I rarely remember any of it.

[pamosmusic]

I would be interested to hear what the OP means when they say "for vocab."

What are you doing with these solos, out of curiosity? What's the difference in how you'd work on a solo for vocab, versus a solo that's no so much for vocab?

[charlieparker]

It's been a while, but as far as I remember the ones I only played parts of and not the entire solo were number 1,3,5,7,8,9,16,21. I may be forgetting one or two. So it was just in the beginning that I played some of them partially, but after a while I decided to do the full solos every time. Although most of the solos I picked were around 1 minute or shorter.
Thanks for watching!

I watched the video and those looked like some insanely difficult solos to play on guitar.

[JazzPadd]

Great thread, good examples!

Although I don’t have the time nor patience to transcribe solos or study them systematically, I appreciate what can be learned from the solos of players I like.

FWIW, if a solo catches my ear, especially for a tune I’m playing at jam sessions, I’ll have a look at what others have transcribed.

Off the top of my head, I found that these three were useful:

Jimmy Raney, Out of Nowhere (for how he ends it logically).

Emily Remler, Strollin’ (for how she begins it so melodically).

Chet Baker, Beatrice (for his note choices and hesitancy).

And listening, not transcriptions, I still marvel at Grant Green’s solo on No. 1 Green Street, esp. for phrasing. Even the Mrs., who is basically musically illiterate, likes that one. To her, “it sounds like he’s talking on the guitar.”

[MMT]

I watched the video and those looked like some insanely difficult solos to play on guitar.

There were a few that made my pull my hair out for sure! Haha! Thanks for watching!

[Christian Miller]

There’s solo transcriptions I’ve done that I’ve learned relatively little from. There’s small bits of music that I’ve learned a tremendous amount from.

Ultimately, it’s really about training the ear. Alwyas be learning l something by ear…

Do we rip licks to play? Some do, some don’t. The main time I’ve done the former is when I’m pastiching something - 30s swing, or baroque counterpoint, bop (early on). Trying to get a few words to say in the style. Later I do more my own thing and I have more a feel for the idiom.


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[grahambop]

I think the first complete solo I learned was Summertime by Wes Montgomery (the Live at Jorgies one, not the studio one he did). It’s really long and it took me weeks to learn it (I memorised it, I didn’t write it down). Obviously I couldn’t play it at the proper tempo, but I learned loads of stuff from it. Also learned to play octaves and some chord solo stuff (after much initial pain!)

I think the first solo I transcribed (i.e. wrote out) was Just Friends by Joe Pass (the ‘Catch Me’ quartet recording). Got loads of bebop vocab from that one.

I did transcribe some other solos but I didn’t really learn them. I think the main benefit was that it trained my ear well (I was using a reel-to-reel tape deck to do it, sometimes I would run it at half-speed. None of your fancy transcribe software back then!).

Apart from that, I learned a lot just by listening to players like Dexter Gordon and Chet Baker. Because they didn’t play really fast stuff that much, I found I could hear and recall lines from their playing quite easily.

[kris]

I played solos by Ch. Parker at the beginning of my studies and then a few solos by M. Davis and J.Raney..
Later I transcribed John Scofield's and Pat Martino solos.I memorized fragments of them.
I listen to thousands of jazz recordings.