# What makes a good jazz solo?



## RayM (Mar 31, 2015)

Hey guys been focusing a lot on the influences of jazz music. It really does take music to another level when you look at it in detail. What do you think gives it that characteristics? I entered in this guitar contest and played over a fusion progression. I tried to take my influences from the gods like holdsworth and kurt rosenwinkle. What do you think? Thanks a lot! Any criticism would be nice! 

https://jamtrackcentral.com/jtcguitarsolocontest2015/entry/1716/


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## Aion (Apr 1, 2015)

Honestly, it's understanding line playing. Jazz playing, whether fusion, modal, or otherwise, comes out of a bebop tradition. Understanding bebop (especially the solos of Charlie Parker) is extremely useful in understanding the blocks of a solo, no matter how chromatic (or alternative diatonic) you want to get.


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## InfinityCollision (Apr 1, 2015)

I smell a thinly veiled plan to farm views/rateups.

It's always awkward talking about what "makes" a jazz solo in an environment such as a <2min solo recording that lies so far outside the jazz tradition. There's no interplay with the rest of the band, there's no context to draw from for a theme, etc.

So I suppose we can start there. A truly great jazz solo draws from ideas already present in the piece, then develops them into something original and creative, something worth sharing with one's audience. It is cooperative, playing off of the rest of the band. It should also be free-flowing to the greatest extent of which the musician is able in order to facilitate fluid communication of and transition between ideas in the solo. These ideas should be coherent, without any awkward breaks in the line that disrupt the solo's flow.


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## octatoan (Apr 2, 2015)

Aion said:


> Honestly, it's understanding line playing. Jazz playing, whether fusion, modal, or otherwise, comes out of a bebop tradition. Understanding bebop (especially the solos of Charlie Parker) is extremely useful in understanding the blocks of a solo, no matter how chromatic (or alternative diatonic) you want to get.



Hey, you know of any really short history of jazz I can read? (Not a book, article-ish) 

I believe it's important to know the periods you speak of - bebop and whatnot.


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## RayM (Apr 2, 2015)

Hey Thanks for the replay guys. I definitely do need to look closer at the Bebop era. I remember listening to Charlie Parker a long time ago. For some reason I thought it was really cheesy at the time. But I now I regret not appreciating it more, especially how influences from the past are so important to include now adays. But I agree the band itself does play a pivotal role, in exchanging concepts and ideas that keep it free flowing.

Does anyone have any good books, articles, or licks they can share?


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## Aion (Apr 3, 2015)

octatoan said:


> Hey, you know of any really short history of jazz I can read? (Not a book, article-ish)
> 
> I believe it's important to know the periods you speak of - bebop and whatnot.




I don't, but here's the shortest really general history/analysis I can do.


You had swing music and tin pan alley songs, and every one was dancing and having a good time. Then you had some people who were really fantastic improvisers. They made bebop happen.

They would take the structure of popular tunes, mostly broadway, tin pan alley pop songs, and blues, and then reharmonized and played them really super fast. They would use these reharmonizations and write new melodies to make new songs.

"Rhythm Changes," which were the chord changes for the song, "I Got Rhythm," by George Gershwin was really popular. So were what become known as, "Parker Blues," named after Charlie Parker who most visibly popularized the reharmonizations. Then there was the music of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, other Gershwin tunes, and many others.

Bebop reharmonization involves taking the tune and making it so there is (usually) two chords per measure. This is all about figuring out the structural chords and then figuring out how to get from one to the other.

Dominants (when you play a dom7 chord a fourth below the next chord you're going to) became very popular. Part of the reason is because there is a lot you can do with them chromatically. If you have a C7 chord, all you really need is C-E-Bb. You need the C because it is the root, you need the E and Bb because the sound of that tritone creates tension. The tension is resolved by moving to an F chord, which when done with as little movement as possible becomes an inverted chord, C-F-A where the C from C7 doesn't move, the E moves up a half step and the Bb moves down a half step.

Since you only need those three notes, C-E-Bb, the bebop musicians reasoned that you could do whatever you wanted with the fifth. Then they started adding ninths on top, and figured you could do the same thing you do with fifths that you do with ninths. This means that the available notes to C7 are C (root), E (third), Gb (b5), G (fifth), G# (#5), Bb (dom7), Db (b9), D (ninth), and D# (#9). In addition to that, they found that thirteenths (A) are also ear pleasing so long as they are not played too closely to the 7th. This means the only notes "unavailable" as chord tones are F and B.

It is also worth mentioning that there are two other common ways to resolve dominants. The first is going up a whole step, usually to a minor chord. This is what's known as a deceptive cadence. The other is down a half step, these are what is known as a tritone substitution. They work because if you look at C7 and F#7, they both use the (enharmonically) same tritone, E-Bb. In fact, if you play C7b5, it is the same as playing Gb7b5. C-E-Gb-Bb=Gb-Bb-Dbb(that is D double flat, which is C)-Fb (which is E).

Of course, none of this addresses the actual solos. Unlike modern jazz soloing which tends to focus more on chords (you can thank/blame Berklee for that), soloing used to focus on arpeggios. Solos were mostly played in 8th notes that tended to arpegiate the chords. They would also use their solo to expand on a chord by changing the 5 or 9 which gave them the freedom to produce extremely chromatic lines. They would also sometimes play nonchord tones, but usually no more than one per chord. Even a "complicated," chords such as a C7b5#9 (woah, so many numbers and symbols!) were really just treated like C7 chords in most cases, which made most notes effectively chord tones.

Part of the reason for the focus on arpeggios was because the chord changes would happen so quickly that there wasn't actually time to show that you were in this or that key, you could only show what chord you were on. When 180 bpm is considered a medium tempo, you're in a fast moving genre. So being able to outline chords quickly and effectively while making a coherent line of music was super important.

While this style was very virtuosotic, it had some very clear limitations. And eventually musicians got really, really tired of always playing a million miles a minute, doing two chord changes per measure (which at that speed made it so that eventually there were very few functional chord changes that sounded interesting), and they started to really feel like they had beaten that brand of chromaticism so far into the dirt that they were liable to hit magma and be consumed by flames any day now. So they decided to stop.

Musicians, notably Miles Davis began to create what would be known as, "modal jazz." Chord changes would sometimes lasts as long as eight measures (though shorter than that was also common) and pedal points and riffs became the backbone of this style. They also slowed way the hell down. Since there was now the time to plays, a more scaler based form of playing became popular. However, it is important to note that many of the masters of this style were mastered of bop as well, so their solos still made use of bebop phrasing. They just used it to explore scales instead of arpeggios.

So that was pretty cool for a while, but then something cooler happened. Jimi Hendrix. Miles Davis saw Jimi and was like, "that. I want to do that, but with a trumpet. Quick, get me some lighter fluid and blowtorch." Totally real quote. Musicians (once again, notably Miles) were combining their music with rock music. This was like modal jazz, but faster, louder, and freer when it came to moving between scales.

This is also when Berklee ruined, I mean changed, jazz pedagogy. Since improve style was still exploring scales, they taught jazz in terms of scales rather than chords. However, once again the people who were best known in this style had an extremely strong foundation in playing bebop and the phrasing of bebop carried over to fusion as well.

That pretty much sums it up. There's a whole lot more to it, the rabbit hole goes pretty deep, but that's the basic outline of those jazz styles. I skipped over free jazz because it doesn't have a lot of bearing on this (though it had quite a bit of crossover with fusion), and there have been and continue to be other subgenres that are really interesting, but that's a general survey of the history and musical traits of the genres. As a sidenote (shameless plug time!) my music theory youtube channel will eventually start covering jazz harmony, though I don't think it'll get to there until I mostly finish classical which will probably happen early/mid summer. That will deal with these concepts in a bit more detail as well as some other topics. Hope that helped.


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## octatoan (Apr 7, 2015)

It did.


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## Thrashman (Apr 7, 2015)

A good jazz solo, to me, is a solo reminiscent of a jazz vocalist. This is also - again, IMO - a great tip for someone that wants to learn to play solos in the genre; listen to the song a few times and start imagining what a jazz singer would do during improvisation/free form singing over said part and mimic.

All of a sudden, you're not just senselessly bashing out chromatic/diatonic notes but start to add motifs, runs and most importantly - AIR and SILENCE into your lead work. 
Silence is indeed gold sometimes


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## octatoan (Apr 8, 2015)

^ The same goes for wind players' solos. They have to breathe, you know. I believe it was either Solodini or Guthrie who once said this. I can't remember who exactly.


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## InfinityCollision (Apr 8, 2015)

Neither one would have been the first to say it, that's a long-standing principle for composition that probably dates back to the earliest attempts to formalize music.


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## mongey (Apr 9, 2015)

octatoan said:


> Hey, you know of any really short history of jazz I can read? (Not a book, article-ish)
> 
> I believe it's important to know the periods you speak of - bebop and whatnot.


 

Its not an article and its not short but Ken Burns Jazz tv series is amazing . a chronological history of jazz from the very beginning to late 90's


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## Aion (Apr 10, 2015)

mongey said:


> Its not an article and its not short but Ken Burns Jazz tv series is amazing . a chronological history of jazz from the very beginning to late 90's



+1 for it being a very good series. Just take the last episode with a grain of salt. It basically writes off everything after Bebop except for the "young lions," who were musicians that came to prominence mostly in the 80's who eschewed modern jazz styles in favor of swing and bop. So it's very selective and has a bit of an elitist bent, but it's still really, really good.


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## Dutchbooked (Apr 11, 2015)

I like jazz guitar when the phrasing isn't like you are completely out of breath playing notes with your fingers.


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## celticelk (Apr 11, 2015)

Aion said:


> +1 for it being a very good series. Just take the last episode with a grain of salt. It basically writes off everything after Bebop except for the "young lions," who were musicians that came to prominence mostly in the 80's who eschewed modern jazz styles in favor of swing and bop. So it's very selective and has a bit of an elitist bent, but it's still really, really good.



I find that Burns's film pairs well with _Jazz: Icons Among Us_, which does a pretty good job of showcasing the actual diversity of sounds present in modern jazz.


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## Aion (Apr 11, 2015)

I'll have to check that out.


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## Skyblue (Apr 11, 2015)

My main problem with many jazz artists is that when ever they start soloing, they lose me. They over kill with a cascade of notes, and you end up not knowing where you are, how their elaborate scales even relate to the piece, and it gets confusing and boring. 
I much prefer artist who create a story with their solo. It doesn't have to b a literal story they try to portrait with music, I don't need to understand the plot. But they hook you- play fast when it's needed to, slow when it's needed to, let you breath and know when to make you hold your breath. 

I hope I'm not sounding silly here, but when an artist stops for a second and thinks what he wants to convey with his solo, rather than just which scales should he play, it makes a huge difference.


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## mongey (Apr 12, 2015)

Aion said:


> +1 for it being a very good series. Just take the last episode with a grain of salt. It basically writes off everything after Bebop except for the "young lions," who were musicians that came to prominence mostly in the 80's who eschewed modern jazz styles in favor of swing and bop. So it's very selective and has a bit of an elitist bent, but it's still really, really good.


 

yeah I do agree it is baised a little against the modern side, but I have to agree so am I at times


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## mongey (Apr 12, 2015)

Skyblue said:


> My main problem with many jazz artists is that when ever they start soloing, they lose me. They over kill with a cascade of notes, and you end up not knowing where you are, how their elaborate scales even relate to the piece, and it gets confusing and boring.
> I much prefer artist who create a story with their solo. It doesn't have to b a literal story they try to portrait with music, I don't need to understand the plot. But they hook you- play fast when it's needed to, slow when it's needed to, let you breath and know when to make you hold your breath.
> 
> I hope I'm not sounding silly here, but when an artist stops for a second and thinks what he wants to convey with his solo, rather than just which scales should he play, it makes a huge difference.


 
fair enough , and I often agree. but the very idea of jazz is that it doesnt play by rules .its like saying you like metal but dont care for the sound of a distorted guitar .its part of what it is 

in many cases it is elitest music for elite musicians to decode and decipher .it not to be listened to like other forms of music. not for me anyway


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## CrushingAnvil (May 13, 2015)

That solo was quite disjointed, and it seemed like you were trying too hard to be technical in the faster part.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 19, 2015)

Not coming in here to contribute anything, just wanted to say that Aion's post bigass post was awesome.


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## JustMac (May 20, 2015)

Dutchbooked said:


> I like jazz guitar when the phrasing isn't like you are completely out of breath playing notes with your fingers.



Do you know of any not-totally obscure solos that do sound like that? I understand what you are saying, but I can't actually think of anyone who does that- almost to the extent where I think that would be really quite interesting, sounds like it could add a sense of urgency to a solo. Immediately I thought of Holdsworth, whose work I personally quite enjoy, although it's an enjoyment far removed from listening to something like Pass or Montgomery; traditional jazz is a lot easier to digest aurally.
Also, I would also like to give massive props to Aion, your explanation of jazz theory in a practical and useful context is a real breath of fresh air, I rarely ever read a long post like that and find myself constantly going 'Oh, yeah!' rather than scratching my head in confusion like..... -------  


Subscribed to your YT, and holy chit, your vids kick serious ass!


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