Jazz and Blues Single Note Soloing Recommendations ?

[Doctor Jeff]

There's a Jamie Aebersold book/record called "Nothin' But Blues" that is, um, nothing but blues. The book itself has a lot of decent information: chord voicings, bass line construction, typical licks, scales, different types of blues forms, etc. along with text descriptions of what's going on.

I had a buddy in college who was obsessed with the blues. He could barely play 3 chords on the guitar, but he used to wander around the house where he and his buddies (and my girlfriend for awhile) lived with a guitar, twanging on it constantly, and saying "Nothing but the blues!"

Within 6 months Bill had picked up some skills and had joined a roots-rock band, and within another 6 months he was doing a creditable Stevie Ray Vaughn/Jimi Hendrix impersonation on stage at local bars--playing with his teeth, behind his back, etc.

He was in a number of well-known Atlanta bands including The Jody Grind, Opal Foxx and Smoke, which probably would have become quite popular if not for the deaths of several bandmembers. (Bill had bad luck with bandmates. 3 members of Jody Grind were killed in a car wreck, and Benjamin--lead singer of Smoke--died of liver failure due to hepatitis C.)

Bill played on a couple of Indigo Girls albums (also from the Atlanta area) and still plays shows that are apparently quite avant-garde (ala The Late Bronze Age).

Sorry for the digression, but every time I hear that phrase, I think of Bill T. walking around with his cheap Strat, playing Muddy Waters tunes.

[Reg]

so ... if your going to steal licks.... move on to sax players like Frank Morgan and Johnny Griffin.

The difference between Blues and Jazz Blues is the harmonic References.

Simple answer.... Blues uses fewer notes with different Harmonic References.

Post an example of Playing a 12 bar Blues.... not soloing just the changes. Then post an example of playing a 12 bar Jazz Blues......You can easily tell the difference between the two.

Most of the guitarist on this forum tend to be pretty straight... Charlie Christian was very straight...

If your still in the spelling or learning to spell the changes mode... Christian is great.

Like I said before.... if you don't have your technique, chops, together. It's really difficult to even begin, be able to hear etc...

It's not just what you play.... it also becomes what you can imply. Even when you don't play it.



Most jazz blues players can make any tune Bluesy. I'll skip the getting past the V I or Dom. Tonic approach. for now.... but eventually you need to open that door.

[ragman1]

Three levels of “blues” ii-V-I licks.

Sick Licks

Actually, I quite like that! You'd certainly get some vocabulary from it. Maybe not the theory behind it, though, and it's not that cheap either. But it does sound useful enough to be useful.

[pamosmusic]

Actually, I quite like that! You'd certainly get some vocabulary from it. Maybe not the theory behind it, though, and it's not that cheap either. But it does sound useful enough to be useful.

Yeah that’s another caveat. Part of the learning process for etudes is that you have to unpack and figure out what’s happening on your own.

Which of course is not any different than transcribed lines. So … middle man sort of?

Still I get the appeal.

[Christian Miller]

I'm going to pipe up for Adam Levy's wonderful Sight Reading for Guitarists book.

Quite a few of the reading exercises are based on a blues, and they are written with great style and imagination. Certainly not musical boilerplate like some reading books I could mention and worthy of study as mini compositions.

[Christian Miller]

Also I just wrote what turned out to be a 2,000 word essay on the history of the jazz blues from King Oliver to Joe Henderson. It was meant to be a script for a video (as yet unmade....)

That just scratches the surface, but some of things that occurred to me while researching and writing ..

- early jazz blues very much major in mode, I and IV chords tend to be straight major, no seventh.
- the IV7 chord sound established by the late 30s
- the IV minor chord is actually really common in earlier jazz blues. West End Blues, Royal Garden Blues.
- the VI7 is also quite common in bar 8 during that era. As noted by Conrad Cork, Louis was often playing changes (for example in the Chimes blues obligato) that look very much like the 'bebop blues' of jazz edu.
- Both chords also a big fixture in bop
- Not sure why I was taught #IVo7 in bar 10 early on. This appears in, for example, Chimes blues (1923 IIRC) but is not that common in the music of Parker. It's kind of an old timey or churchy chord in fact! Especially if you play the big old cadential 6 4 in bar 11. Maybe someone can think of some bop era examples. Now's the Time has it I think?
- Sideslip IIIm bIIIm IIm into bar 9 is already in use by Charlie Christian as a passing chord in early 40s. This leads to a bunch of bop blues progressions. (obviously Swedish Blues, but also in the comping for Now's the Time for example.)
- Whatever the rhythm section is doing, Bird is often playing the Louis style changes, although he obviously likes leaning into the IV7 a lot. Not always though. There's a story about that lol.
- Chord IV in bar 10 is established by the 60s by Coltrane for example.
- As I mentioned while comping instrument often played I7 throughout the bop era, Bird seemed to hear that chord as more of a major 6, or even major seventh sound. He tended to reserve the b7 for bar 4, not unlike a old timey player!

[princeplanet]

Also I just wrote what turned out to be a 2,000 word essay on the history of the jazz blues from King Oliver to Joe Henderson. It was meant to be a script for a video (as yet unmade....)

That just scratches the surface, but some of things that occurred to me while researching and writing ..

- early jazz blues very much major in mode, I and IV chords tend to be straight major, no seventh.
- the IV7 chord sound established by the late 30s
- the IV minor chord is actually really common in earlier jazz blues. West End Blues, Royal Garden Blues.
- the VI7 is also quite common in bar 8 during that era. As noted by Conrad Cork, Louis was often playing changes (for example in the Chimes blues obligato) that look very much like the 'bebop blues' of jazz edu.
- Both chords also a big fixture in bop
- Not sure why I was taught #IVo7 in bar 10 early on. This appears in, for example, Chimes blues (1923 IIRC) but is not that common in the music of Parker. It's kind of an old timey or churchy chord in fact! Especially if you play the big old cadential 6 4 in bar 11. Maybe someone can think of some bop era examples. Now's the Time has it I think?
- Sideslip IIIm bIIIm IIm into bar 9 is already in use by Charlie Christian as a passing chord in early 40s. This leads to a bunch of bop blues progressions. (obviously Swedish Blues, but also in the comping for Now's the Time for example.)
- Whatever the rhythm section is doing, Bird is often playing the Louis style changes, although he obviously likes leaning into the IV7 a lot. Not always though. There's a story about that lol.
- Chord IV in bar 10 is established by the 60s by Coltrane for example.
- As I mentioned while comping instrument often played I7 throughout the bop era, Bird seemed to hear that chord as more of a major 6, or even major seventh sound. He tended to reserve the b7 for bar 4, not unlike a old timey player!

Great info Christian, cheers. Now, how about this story about Bird liking (but not always?) leaning into the IV7 ?

[Christian Miller]

Great info Christian, cheers. Now, how about this story about Bird liking (but not always?) leaning into the IV7 ?

One of the more SFW stories from Miles’s autobiography

“Bird never talked about music, except one time I heard him arguing with a classical musician friend of mine. He told the cat that you could do anything with chords. I disagreed, told him that you couldn’t play D natural on the fifth bar of a B flat blues. He said you could. One night later on at Birdland, I heard Lester Young do it, but he bent the note. Bird was there when it happened he just looked over at me with that “I told you so” look that he would lay on you when he had proved you wrong.”

(Which goes to show that young players paying too much attention to theory is nothing new.)

That said, Parker most often would play the Db on the Eb chord I would say. He was especially fond of the minor blues phrases here, which includes this note. But he would also favour it in his more diatonic lines. One exception is the melody from the cool blues.

More interesting info here centering on Miles and Lester Youngs diatonic approach to the blues. Miles solo on Now’s the Time is interesting that way. He clearly internalised the lesson. (Although retrospectively… NTT recorded in ‘45 birdland opened in 49? Hah, no idea.)

Miles Davis and Lester Young | DO THE M@TH

Sorry to keep Ethan posting but he’s the only person who seems to post about this stuff…

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[Bobby Timmons]

What I was hoping for was advice on what resources I can use to develop both Blues and Jazz lines/vocab (and I suppose a specific breakdown of how to do it), and how to actually incorporate this into playing over tunes. I'm not looking for a book of licks, but more a guide to how to build and play lines in the style.

There are 3 ways to learn how play lines: transcribe, read, and work out the mechanics of the raw materials.

1. Transcribe. Like the others said, it's essential to transcribe some things to be able to learn jazz authentically. You need to develop your ear, you need vocab, and you need to learn how the music should actually sound. You don't need to transcribe whole solos, the most important thing is that you actually do it. Start with a single lick or passage. Transcribe it correctly, learn to play it correctly, then analyze how to apply it in the music.

2. Read. Some guys prefer the only ear approach because it forces you to develop your ear really well and makes your connection with the music more intuitive. However this isn't realistic for everyone. You can read things too. A benefit to this is it makes analyzing things easier without necessarily transcribing for an entire year straight. An example with me is I learned a lot just scanning through the Charlie Parker omnibook and learning the methods to his lines. Melodies to tunes can be good study too.

3. Raw materials. You need to understand the mechanics to playing jazz. No, jazz isn't running a scale up and down, but that doesn't mean that it isn't putting a few theoretical ideas together and ending up with something musical. Teaching someone a lick is giving them a fish, teaching someone the actual mechanics of jazz lines is teaching them how to fish. How to start is being able to outline the changes first with the arpeggios, then with scales, then combine them, then add intervals and chromatics to make the melodies authentic.

[pauln]

Blues Blues and Jazz Blues

Chords
Think of the 12 measure form leading into the 4th measure (the big change into the IV chord (subdominant). both Blues Blues and Jazz Blues often slide into that chord from a half step above. For a Blues in G...

Blues Blues does it like this:
x43444 C#(9) into C9 x32333

Jazz Blues does it more like this:
xx3443 C#(9b5) into C9 xx2333
where rootless C#(9b5) may be played as Gaug/F

It may be temping to imagine that the Blues version of the passing chord is an attempt at approximation of the Jazz version, or that the Jazz version is a caricature of the Blues version, but both really have their own tonality; you have to judge which is appropriate. However, usually it sounds great to play lines that acknowledge the Jazz versions of these things in a Blues Blues where these harmonies are not explicitly sounded.

Lines
In terms of exploring Jazz Blues solo lines, consider a dominant Blues form with all "the changes" and passing chord harmonies (or see if you can find chords that work rooted from all the scale degrees of the key - 1, b2, 2, b3, 3, 4, b5, 5, b6, 6, b7, and natural 7); then see if you can identify the one scale degree note that sounds good with all of them (hint: it's not the tonic).

[pcjazz]

Years ago I found Jim Ferguson's books on comping and soloing helpful in making the transition from folk/country blues to jazz blues, along with a lot of careful listening to the masters. No idea whether they are still available.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Also I just wrote what turned out to be a 2,000 word essay on the history of the jazz blues from King Oliver to Joe Henderson. It was meant to be a script for a video (as yet unmade....)

That just scratches the surface, but some of things that occurred to me while researching and writing ..

- early jazz blues very much major in mode, I and IV chords tend to be straight major, no seventh.
- the IV7 chord sound established by the late 30s
- the IV minor chord is actually really common in earlier jazz blues. West End Blues, Royal Garden Blues.
- the VI7 is also quite common in bar 8 during that era. As noted by Conrad Cork, Louis was often playing changes (for example in the Chimes blues obligato) that look very much like the 'bebop blues' of jazz edu.
- Both chords also a big fixture in bop
- Not sure why I was taught #IVo7 in bar 10 early on. This appears in, for example, Chimes blues (1923 IIRC) but is not that common in the music of Parker. It's kind of an old timey or churchy chord in fact! Especially if you play the big old cadential 6 4 in bar 11. Maybe someone can think of some bop era examples. Now's the Time has it I think?
- Sideslip IIIm bIIIm IIm into bar 9 is already in use by Charlie Christian as a passing chord in early 40s. This leads to a bunch of bop blues progressions. (obviously Swedish Blues, but also in the comping for Now's the Time for example.)
- Whatever the rhythm section is doing, Bird is often playing the Louis style changes, although he obviously likes leaning into the IV7 a lot. Not always though. There's a story about that lol.
- Chord IV in bar 10 is established by the 60s by Coltrane for example.
- As I mentioned while comping instrument often played I7 throughout the bop era, Bird seemed to hear that chord as more of a major 6, or even major seventh sound. He tended to reserve the b7 for bar 4, not unlike a old timey player!

For me Swedish Blues is a chromatic chain of II-Vs leading to the II V of the key like in Blues For Alice:

from bar 5: | IV | IVm7 bVII7 | IIIm7 VI7 | bIIIm7 bVI7 | IIm7 | V7 | I etc.

And is side-slipping the right term, doesn't it involve going back to the first chord from which you side-slipped?

From my listening experience the most important bop blues progression is (from bar 5):

| IV | #IVo | I IIm7 | IIIm7 bIIIm7 | IIm7 | V7 | I etc., e.g. Red Top

Talking about trad jazz blues changes:

One thing that is rarely addressed (and happens e.g. in the head of Blue Monk but is rarely played there because too many people rely on lead sheets and not their undevelopped ears):*)

| I | IV7 | I V7 | I I7 |

| IV | #IVo**) | I V7 | I |

| V | V | I V7 | I etc.


*) BTW most lead sheets of that tune don't have that "displaced quarter note triplet thing" (for lack of a better word) in bars 3 to 4 figured out correctly.

**) This might also be a bVI7 chord, listen e.g. to banjo player Papa Charlie Jackson.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

[...]

2. Read. Some guys prefer the only ear approach because it forces you to develop your ear really well and makes your connection with the music more intuitive. However this isn't realistic for everyone. You can read things too. A benefit to this is it makes analyzing things easier without necessarily transcribing for an entire year straight. An example with me is I learned a lot just scanning through the Charlie Parker omnibook and learning the methods to his lines. Melodies to tunes can be good study too.

[...]

This IMO is the worst advice you can give to a noob. The most important thing for playing jazz of any style (and music in general) is being able to hear melodies and chord changes in your head -- IIRC the scientific term for that is audiation. If you cannot hear it you cannot play it - period. Ear training is crucial and should be number one in your studies.

All the greats had developped great ears. All the great educators insist(ed) in ear training in one way or another, be it Lennie Tristano (and his students, Lennie would not let his students start to improvise if they were not able to sing their first master solos by rote -- Armstrong, Prez, Bird, Eldridge, Charlie Christian, Navarro etc.), Barry Harris, Dennis (and Adolph) Sandole, Charlie Banacos (who had perfect pitch and would even identify the pitches of the beeps of the ICU machines in his final days in hospital). Joan Chamorro is leading bands with kids in Barcelona that he starts to train in some kind of mixture of Tristano and Suzuki method from an rather early age on. Bruce Forman talks very rigidly of the topic ("Practice your hearing, not your playing") as does Ex-Israeli sax player Gilad Atzmon, Jerry Bergonzy stresses the importance of good ears etc. etc. ...

In this context: By mechanically reading from the Omnibook you will not be able to hear the mistakes in the transcriptions. BTW the transcriptions in the Thomas Owens dissertation and especially the "Charlie Parker Tune Book" by Fred Parcells are much more acurate.

[Bobby Timmons]

Are you serious? Seriously go scrub it. I did say the #1 thing was to do ear work. Many distinguished musicians read and don't learn and process all their music 100% aurally. So reading is realistically part of the picture. My teacher Tony Monaco, who is the most distinguished living jazz organist besides Larry Goldings, taught me to read but with ear work too.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Are you serious? Seriously go scrub it. I did say the #1 thing was to do ear work. Many distinguished musicians read and don't learn and process all their music 100% aurally. So reading is realistically part of the picture. My teacher Tony Monaco, who is the most distinguished living jazz organist besides Larry Goldings, taught me to read but with ear work too.

Can you read a melody without the instrument and hear inside your head or sing what is written? I do not mean fluently but are you able to figure it out away from the instrument? Can you hear the changes on a lead sheet away from the instrument? If not (or at least if that is not your goal) what is your reading worth then?

[pamosmusic]

Can you read a melody without the instrument and hear inside your head or sing what is written? I do not mean fluently but are you able to figure it out away from the instrument? Can you hear the changes on a lead sheet away from the instrument? If not (or at least if that is not your goal) what is your reading worth then?

You're in a very Take Things Out of Context And Throw Down mood these last two evenings.

Not that I'm in the habit of running to Bobby's aid, but I might point out that you quoted "#2" of his points, and put ellipses in place of "#1" ... but #1 was as follows:

1. Transcribe. Like the others said, it's essential to transcribe some things to be able to learn jazz authentically. You need to develop your ear, you need vocab, and you need to learn how the music should actually sound. You don't need to transcribe whole solos, the most important thing is that you actually do it. Start with a single lick or passage. Transcribe it correctly, learn to play it correctly, then analyze how to apply it in the music.

So I believe the aim of the post was to say "it's most important to transcribe, but reading from transcribed solos has value too." Which seems pretty inoffensive.

[Bobby Timmons]

Can you read a melody without the instrument and hear inside your head or sing what is written? I do not mean fluently but are you able to figure it out away from the instrument? Can you hear the changes on a lead sheet away from the instrument? If not (or at least if that is not your goal) what is your reading worth then?

Yes, I can. I sight sang in college in musicianship class and choir lol. And I still have further developed that ability to look at music and have a sense of how it goes whether it's melody or harmony.

I personally recently went on the pauln program of learning all music by ear and no reading at all. But it's not realistic to tell a beginner to learn everything by ear. Reading is an established part of music education not in exclusion to aural skills.

[Jonah]

Books... Tim Lerch on melodic impro, Randy Vincent cellular approach (if I remember the title correctly)...


Personally I never really used any as I feel like for comping (or chordal soloing) the conception is really necessary on guitar otherwise it is difficult to organize

but for melodic improvization I would really rely on the personal melodic feeling and ear....
so to say put on fretboard something I hear in my head and work with it or pick up some ideas from records that I liked and also trying to work with them creatively.
My assumption is that if one has a passion to play jazz or blues then there are already some melodic ideas there in his/her head (ear, mind) and it is just important to find a way to put it on the fretboard, make them sound.

The issue with books (however good they are) is that they offer structured, already given approach (somebody was creative and them made kind of retrospective analysis of it, but you do not see all the way from art to structure, only the structure in the result) , and in my opinion the melody is the most important expression of individuality in this genre of music, it should come out from some personal source.

And for me for a start it is better to find your way of handling just a few ideas in the keys an positions you like them best of your own than going to an abstract methodic approach: internalize some setup, or theoretical conception in all the keys, positions, strings etc.
Because it can be a bit like learning drawing without understanding what you want to draw actually.
and at the beginning the most important thing is to understand what you want to draw and how exactly your practice leads you to that.
And once you have done your own things you eventually can easily see through any conception what is behind it from creative or artistic point of you and if it fits your personality and then you adapt in an artistic way first of all.

[Christian Miller]

For me Swedish Blues is a chromatic chain of II-Vs leading to the II V of the key like in Blues For Alice:

from bar 5: | IV | IVm7 bVII7 | IIIm7 VI7 | bIIIm7 bVI7 | IIm7 | V7 | I etc.

Well that’s how I played it (or rather - failed to play it) when I first learned this tune. But I don’t hear the piano playing all these chords. Otoh bird isn’t articulating them all either. You’ll see some variance in the charts as a result.

IV chord is usually IV7 here btw.

You have to be careful with the stuff. It’s very easy to imagine “phantom chords” based on what you normally play and are therefore used to hearing. (Maybe jazz educators wanted to emphasise cycle movement like in There Will Never Be?)

So it becomes

F | E-7 A7 | D- | C-7 F7 |
Bb7 | Bb- | A-* | Ab- |
G-7 | C7 | F | G-7 C7 |

* maybe F/A.

But there’s quite a bit of variation esp in bars 7-8. Sometimes you hear the Ab- quite delayed in the comping ala Moose the Mooche. Sometimes there’s a dominant chord.

(I don’t have the Omnibook with me but IIRC it has something like that? I think the Omnibook chnages reflect what’s actually played reasonably well compared to the real books.)

Certainly a bit easier haha. And closer to other blues forms, such as your changes. The main difference is the D- digression. That said the piano chords are not the clearest on the original recording. Have a close listen and see if you agree.

And is side-slipping the right term, doesn't it involve going back to the first chord from which you side-slipped?

I doubt the term is standardised. Maybe? Dunno. Happy use a different term if you propose one.

From my listening experience the most important bop blues progression is (from bar 5):

| IV | #IVo | I IIm7 | IIIm7 bIIIm7 | IIm7 | V7 | I etc., e.g. Red Top

It should be a IV7 IMO and I’d quibble with how often you get the diminshed, I don’t think it’s the most common choice. But some tunes certainly have it. Maybe it just depended on who was playing bass that day haha.

Your changes are like Barry’s idea of a bop blues other than that. Barry had a ii V I on bars 2-3. Barry tended not to include the #ivo7 in rhythm changes either.

Parker does use the VI7b9 chord in bar 8 too, but not every time…. Quite often he’ll leave a gap there in his phrasing.

Talking about trad jazz blues changes:

One thing that is rarely addressed (and happens e.g. in the head of Blue Monk but is rarely played there because too many people rely on lead sheets and not their undevelopped ears):*)

| I | IV7 | I V7 | I I7 |

| IV | #IVo**) | I V7 | I |

| V | V | I V7 | I etc.


*) BTW most lead sheets of that tune don't have that "displaced quarter note triplet thing" (for lack of a better word) in bars 3 to 4 figured out correctly.

**) This might also be a bVI7 chord, listen e.g. to banjo player Papa Charlie Jackson.

Well, what is the point of jazz if we don’t get to criticise others lol?


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[Christian Miller]

I think an ear centred approach is best, but you have to have a progressive course of developing this or you are likely to get discouraged. Also modern jazz is much more complicated and solos longer than in the 40s and 50s. Otoh transcriptions and theory info is everywhere.

Is it reasonable to suggest ten years of study to go through the history of the music in order before they get to the music of today (as good as a syllabus as that would be)? Possibly not.

(Not all modern stuff is super hard to hear though, the teacher has to find the low hanging fruit.)

Reading is a must for playing in larger ensembles and jazz workshops.

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[alltunes]

Yes, great! Can you recommend any recordings, transcriptions, exercises (or resources) that I could start with?

I’m going to recommend a video again this time Jimmy Bruno Vol. 1 from DC Music School. Better then a book…listen watch and you get the TAB that you can loop slow down repeat. Jimmy does several choruses of blues in Bb, Cm and F. There is plenty of great “language” here ready for you to assimilate and mutate and transpose.

This is what you need and are looking for…now get to work I will too.

In The Style Of Jimmy Bruno, Vol. 1 | DC Music School

And a sample from the course above:

[Reg]

So how long can you solo on a I IV vamp/ How many different styles and feels can you develop.

Blues really just comes down to the Tonic Subdom thing. the I IV harmonic movement using notes. V's are generally just for turnarounds or to imply Targets.

Blues and jazz blues are not clean or polite feels. Jazz blues just has a few more harmonic levels going on at the same time.
I think I posted a vid 10 or 15 tears ago on this forum... I'll try and make a new one.... BUT...

Post an example , really and I'll also post material that will help you. You really can't expect someone to help if you don't put up something.

[Jonah]

I think an ear centred approach is best, but you have to have a progressive course of developing this or you are likely to get discouraged. Also modern jazz is much more complicated and solos longer than in the 40s and 50s. Otoh transcriptions and theory info is everywhere.

Is it reasonable to suggest ten years of study to go through the history of the music in order before they get to the music of today (as good as a syllabus as that would be)? Possibly not.

(Not all modern stuff is super hard to hear though, the teacher has to find the low hanging fruit.)

Reading is a must for playing in larger ensembles and jazz workshops.

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I do not support historical approach (unless one wants to do it on purpose of course), I see no limitations from artistic/aesthetic point of you. And also I would not think of modern jazz as something more complex if one has already an ear for it.
I met people who grew up listening Holdsworth, McLaughlin, Garbarek etc. and feel much more comfortable in modal setup/form/harmony than in traditional world of jazz standards or bebop. And their ear works the same way.

If someone wants to learn some styles authentically like playing 'correct' manouche or be-bop or early swing then it is another approach, more focused on study of the heritage, tools etc.
Also if one wants to play professionally as a session player in different styles - it also requires kind organized methodical approach to cover everything.

But if the idea is just to realize and put in practice your own creative ideas in area which is the most natural for you (without huge professional ambitions) I would just stick to the ear approach. But some self-discipline and self-organization is still needed.

I think overall it is a matter of tradition. Originally jazz education was oral tradition, when it became an academic (Berklee conception) education it also reflected a mentality of this time a lot. Academic conceptions have a tendency for conservation and (borrowed from exact sciences) idea of objective approach which is illusive and often misleading in artistic discipline, it creates a wrong feeling that once you are through with some method you become creative, like once you are through with all the math course successfully you just get more or less where you want to be, in arts it does not work and therefore the students often come like absolutely empty bowl and wait until you fill it. Though it should be the other way around.

The theoretical and practical tools of education should be always directly connected with a living artistic language.

One studied counterpoint or partimenti in 18-19th centuries because one already had an intuitive idea how it should sound and what it should express since early years: for, expressive and semantic tools etc. So one just needed to organizae it more or less (though I believe young Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schubert, Hayden, Mozart did not need it, they already knew most of the things just through playing music by the age of 7-10).
It was the same thing with traditional jazz, later with modal... now it feels more like there is a lack of an envirment and direct connection, so often no intuitive understanding of form and semantics of music. And this is what is difficult to teach just from the books.

[Reg]

Thank you for all of these replies and sorry for the confusion (however it's sparked a really interesting discussion that I've enjoyed reading).

To answer the question that started it all (and I'm paraphrasing)... Do you want to learn how to navigate a Jazz-Blues or learn vocabulary in the Blues Idiom?

I suppose eventually both, however to clarify what I'm looking for I'll go into a bit more detail.

I can play pentatonic and major scales in all positions at a decent tempo and can play arpeggios across the whole neck too. This doesn't help when it comes to solo because (to me) this isn't 'vocabulary'.

I'm focusing on Jazz-Blues tunes just now, but I'm also learning standards too. What I was hoping for was advice on what resources I can use to develop both Blues and Jazz lines/vocab (and I suppose a specific breakdown of how to do it), and how to actually incorporate this into playing over tunes. I'm not looking for a book of licks, but more a guide to how to build and play lines in the style.

I know I'd need to play different things over, say, Au Privave; Anthropology; and Autumn Leaves, but I hope this can be incorporated into some of the replies.

Hope that clarifies? and looking forward to readng the replies

Rag... this is his 2nd post. I don't think he's that worried about tone or actual sound of Guitar. I know we're both old...LOL

[Christian Miller]

I do not support historical approach (unless one wants to do it on purpose of course), I see no limitations from artistic/aesthetic point of you. And also I would not think of modern jazz as something more complex if one has already an ear for it.
I met people who grew up listening Holdsworth, McLaughlin, Garbarek etc. and feel much more comfortable in modal setup/form/harmony than in traditional world of jazz standards or bebop. And their ear works the same way.

If someone wants to learn some styles authentically like playing 'correct' manouche or be-bop or early swing then it is another approach, more focused on study of the heritage, tools etc.
Also if one wants to play professionally as a session player in different styles - it also requires kind organized methodical approach to cover everything.

But if the idea is just to realize and put in practice your own creative ideas in area which is the most natural for you (without huge professional ambitions) I would just stick to the ear approach. But some self-discipline and self-organization is still needed.

I think overall it is a matter of tradition. Originally jazz education was oral tradition, when it became an academic (Berklee conception) education it also reflected a mentality of this time a lot. Academic conceptions have a tendency for conservation and (borrowed from exact sciences) idea of objective approach which is illusive and often misleading in artistic discipline, it creates a wrong feeling that once you are through with some method you become creative, like once you are through with all the math course successfully you just get more or less where you want to be, in arts it does not work and therefore the students often come like absolutely empty bowl and wait until you fill it. Though it should be the other way around.

The theoretical and practical tools of education should be always directly connected with a living artistic language.

One studied counterpoint or partimenti in 18-19th centuries because one already had an intuitive idea how it should sound and what it should express since early years: for, expressive and semantic tools etc. So one just needed to organizae it more or less (though I believe young Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schubert, Hayden, Mozart did not need it, they already knew most of the things just through playing music by the age of 7-10).
It was the same thing with traditional jazz, later with modal... now it feels more like there is a lack of an envirment and direct connection, so often no intuitive understanding of form and semantics of music. And this is what is difficult to teach just from the books.

Yeah, I mean started off listening to Coltrane and Brecker and only got into bop and pre war jazz much later. Which is not uncommon.

It is however much easier to understand bop if you understand swing, and much easier to understand modern jazz if you get bop, and so on. Not that everyone learns like this, I know working players who have don’t know the tunes bop contrafacts are written on - they start straight with the bop.

But I believe there’s even some schools that attempt to teach that way.

One advantage we have in learning jazz as opposed to historical improvisation is the availability of recordings. I agree that cultural immersion is a huge part of it (language analogy again) and I would have expected most of the instruction in diminutions etc in c18 to have been transmitted aurally. Given the relative paucity of instructional material, it seems a reasonable assumption.

Most historical improvisers seem to be working from the available treatises rather than seeking to find commonality with contemporary improv traditions. I don’t feel this is likely to happen in jazz.

One thing that’s the hardest is style and idiom. I think harmony is much easier to teach because style and idiom are often picked up naturally. Idiom in language is like this, of course. The basic practical harmony of bop, C18 music or even chord scale theory is relatively uncomplicated. What is hard are the details and things that make music sound idiomatic. I think jazz instruction is often really poor at this. Which is why people learn ‘bop language’ at college.

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