After the song has finished, the person comes up to you and politely asks “it’s my friend’s birthday tonight, can you play happy birthday for us?”

You pause for a second and confront the rest of the band to ask if they know it only to awkwardly reply to the person who requested the song “Sorry, none of us know it, but we can play Giant Steps in 7!”

While musicians can’t be expected to play every request they get asked on gigs, one tune every musician should know is how to play is happy birthday. This short melody is worth learning so you’re prepared at gigs for requests, or if you just like to play for your friends and family.

As a gigging musician, I’ve had some nice tips over the years for been able to play this while busking or on a gig, so it’s worth having it as part of your repertoire.

In today’s lesson I will show you how to play the tune a happy birthday chord melody arrangement, but I have also included a simple lead sheet incase you want to make your own solo piece. If you don’t learn the melody it’s well worth printing off the lead sheet and putting it in your guitar bag.

About The Song

This song is a short piece in ¾, so I have decided to include two versions of it in today’s lesson.

The first version is a chord melody arrangement of the tune so you can play it as a solo jazz guitar piece. To learn more about chord melody arrangements and jazz guitar chords check out this 30 day series.

The second version is a simplified lead sheet that you can just print off and stick in your guitar case for gigs if you don’t have the time to learn it. You can even use this lead sheet to create your own chord melody arrangement of the piece.

Happy Birthday Chord Melody Arrangement

Things to Notice About This Arrangement

• The use of quartal voicings almost every bar. To learn more about quartal voicings, check out this article
• The use of major and dominant 7^th drops 2 voicings
• There are some tricky jumps in the melody, so play it rubato style a few times before playing it in tempo. Because it’s only a short song, playing it slow helps span it out a little too. Check out these tips on solo jazz guitar arrangements to help you harmonize a melody.

Happy Birthday Melody

I hope that you enjoy learning this short little Happy Birthday Chord Melody. Have you ever been asked to play Happy Birthday on a gig and not knew it? Share your stories in the comment section below.

Happy Birthday Chord Melody Arrangement from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today

At some stage in learning to play jazz guitar, every guitarist gets to the point where they know the fretboard well enough to play the right notes over each chord without getting lost in the form, but despite this, some how the phrasing doesn’t quite sound jazzy.

This is one problem I faced myself and see in many intermediate jazz guitar students that I’ve taught over the years so I’ve decided to put together a series of different lessons to help with this problem.

The next few lessons will focus on some of the best exercises I’ve found to develop better jazz phrasing, the first of which I’d like to share in today’s lesson is a cool bar rest exercise. Although this exercise is applied over a jazz progression you can use to better your blues guitar chops.

“You know what’s the loudest noise in the world, man? The loudest noise in the world is silence.” – Thelonious Monk

Musical Phrasing Exercise 1: Bar Rest Exercise

One trap that jazz guitarists can sometimes fall into is playing too many notes just to fill up space. A great exercise to avoid this happening is to leave a bar of silence between each phrase in a solo.

Put on a backing track or record the chords to a tune that you are working on and give this exercise a try. Start with a medium tempo tune no faster than 160 beats per minute at first.

Although, you might not play this way at a gig, not having as much time to play a phrase will force you to play less notes and more melodically. The exercise will also help develop your time and rhythmic chops because you will need to be very aware of where you are within the bar and form.

For the purpose of this lesson I have written out an etude that shows how this phrasing technique can be applied to the ‘Blue Bossa’ chord progression.

Before we look at the full thing, let’s break the form down into four bar chunks. Here are the first four bars of the progression. Notice that there are phrases in the first and third bars and the second and fourth bars have been left empty.

Blue Bossa Solo: First Four Bars

The 1^st and 3^rd bars show Dorian scale based lines over each chord. One thing that makes each of these licks sound like a phrase and not just like a scale is the fact they start on the up beat of the bar which provides a nice syncopated feel.

Also notice that both of these lines use the same rhythms, and that the harmony is slightly different within each phrase. This use of rhythmic repetition is a great basis for motific development which will be explored in more depth later in the series.

Blue Bossa Solo: Second Four Bars

Over the D-7b5 chord there is a line based off a descending Locrian mode starting on the 5^th degree of the scale. The line over C-7 is a little more rhythmically ambitious showcasing more syncopated way of playing using guide tones.

Blue Bossa Solo: Third Four Bars

The line starting off this set of 4 bars is based off the honeysuckle rose cliché which is a common device in bebop soloing. Again, there’s a cool syncopated lick over the I chord, Dbmaj7.

Blue Bossa Solo: Final Four Bars

Over the G7b9 there is a nice altered lick that could resolve well into the C-7, but to stick to this exercise I have kept it within a bar. Here’s the full etude.

Blue Bossa Phrasing Etude

To take this task one step further you can also try just using your thumb which will most likely result in playing less notes and more melodically too.

You could also try playing chords in the empty bars, so that you’re developing your chordal and single line chops. To learn more about this exercise, follow this link:

http://jamieholroydguitar.com/how-to-develop-guitar-phrasing

This type of melodic jazz phrasing is used extensively by greats such as Jim Hall, Kenny Burrell, Larry Carlton and Miles Davis. The space that these players use in their solos is as important as the notes the play.

One cool transcription task you can do that is a little extension on this is to transcribe the space in a solo rather than the notes. What do you think of using space in your playing? Share your thoughts below.

How to Develop Musical Phrasing Using Silence from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today

I am humbled to discover than in just 1 year I have passed 800 likes on my Facebook Page, 1600 subscribers on my newsletter, 400 subscribers on my YouTube channel and had over 100,000 visits on this site.

To say thanks for everyone’s support and for following my Jazz Guiitar Lesson Newsletter, Facebook page, YouTube Channel, and Google Plus account I will be giving away a bunch of free lessons and ebooks from myself and some other great online teachers.

To enter just comment anywhere below and leave your email address in the comment

Your email will not be used for anything other than contacting you with details on how to claim your prize.

Guitar Giveaway Prizes

30 Days to Better Jazz Guitar Comping eBook

Fundamental Changes in Jazz eBook

Intro to CAGED system and 100 Blues Licks eBook

Complete Technique for Modern Guitar

Modern Time eBook

30 Days to Better Jazz Guitar eBook

Building Bebop Vocabulary Ebook

30 Minute Guitar Lesson with Scott Cook

30 Minute Guitar Lesson with Me

15 Minute Custom Jazz Guitar Lesson

10 winners will be picked Sunday 14th April at 18:00 GMT time and I will contact you shortly afterwards with details on how you can claim your prize. I will be using random.org to select the winners and you can win more than one prize if you get picked twice. Thank you for all your support over the last 12 months and good luck with the competition!

Guitar eBooks and Lessons Giveaway from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today

While everyone had great suggestions, reader Daniel P suggested a lesson on arpeggios. Upon realizing that I didn’t have a lesson on this important topic, I decided to write this article as a guide on how to play arpeggios on guitar.

Besides having good comping and chordal chops, we must also practice single line sololing and one of my favorite ways to outline changes is by using arpeggios.

Arpeggios are some of the most important patterns you can learn on the guitar because you can define a chord with only 4 notes.

Modes and scales certainly have their purpose, but an arpeggio has 3 less notes so they’re much easier to grab when harmony is quickly moving by.

To play over a major ii-V-I you need to be comfortable playing over three different chord types; major, minor and dominant 7^th’s, but first let’s look at how each arpeggio changes over the same chord type.

Major 7^th Arpeggio

The first arpeggio that we will be looking at is the Major 7^th arpeggio which has a a sweet and open sound. The notes found within the arpeggio are all diatonic to the major scale. You can use major 7^th arpeggios to improvise over any type of major or major 7^th chords such as major 9th, major 6, and major 6/9 amongst others. The diagram below shows a two octave major 7^th arpeggio in the key of C.

Major 7^th  Formula: R, 3, 5^th, 7

C Maj7 Arpeggio: C, E, G, B

Dominant 7^th Arpeggio

There is only one note that changes from a major 7^th arpeggio to form a dominant 7^th arpeggio, the 7^th. The major 7^th has a natural 7^th whereas the dominant 7^th arpeggio has a flat 7^th which, as a full arpeggio produces a bluesy type of sound because dominant 7th chords are an important part of blues music.

Dominant 7^th Formula: R, 3, 5^th, b7

C7 Arpeggio: C, E, G, Bb

Minor 7^th Arpeggio

The last arpeggio that we are going to look at for now is the minor 7^th arpeggio which is like a dominant 7^th arpeggio, but with a flat 3^rd.  Minor 7^th arpeggios can be used to improvise over any type of minor chords, such as minor 7ths, minor 9ths, and minor 11ths.

If you have listened to the music of the jazz guitar great Django Reinhardt then you have probably heard them in a musical content already. Django’s composition ‘Minor Swing’ uses two minor 7^th arpeggios going up 4ths for the first part of the head.

Minor 7^th Formula: R, b3, 5, b7

C-7 Arpeggio: C, Eb, G, Bb

Practicing Arpeggios

Just like when practicing scales, the note names to each arpeggio must be said when you’re practicing them on the guitar to ensure you that you become aware of what’s happening harmonically underneath your fingers.

Before moving on, it is important to explore the arpeggios in a musical content. Record a 1 chord vamp for each chord type (major 7th, dominant 7th and minor 7th) and improvise only using one arpeggio at a time. For example, record a C major chord vamp or use a backing track, and only use a C major 7^th arpeggio.

Try improvising with just one octave of the arpeggio to begin with to get used to the sound and fingering. Repeat this process for all 3 chords.

Now that we can play over each chord individually we need to look at combining them. Record a new backing track with 8 bars of Cmajor7 and then 8 bars of C-7, and solo over them just using the arpeggios explored in this lesson.

When you can switch between these two arpeggios , try recording a new track that has only 4 bars of C major 7 and then 4 bars of Minor 7, then 2 bars of each chord (like Green Dolphin Street), and ultimately one bar of each chord.

Spelling out the different chord tones in each chord means that you are now ‘playing the changes’ which is an essential ingredient of learning jazz guitar. Congratulations!

Applying Arpeggios over a ii-V-I

Once you can comfortably solo over each of the three chord types individually, we can now start to look at using them over a progression.

One progression that we are going to look at applying arpeggios over is the II V I which forms the back bone of many standards. A II-V-I progression in the key of C would be D-7 for a bar, then G7 and finally C major 7 for a bar.

This means that we have 3 separate chord types to solo over, so first thing’s first; let’s check out the arpeggios for each of these 3 chords.

Minor 7^th Formula: R, b3, 5, 7b7

D-7 Arpeggio: D, F, A, C

Dominant 7^th Formula: R, 3, 5^th, b7

G7 Arpeggio: G, B, D, F

Major 7^th  Formula: R, 3, 5^th, 7

C Maj7 Arpeggio: C, E, G, B

Now that we have them all together in one area of the neck, record the chords or use a backing track to practice blowing the progression using the arpeggios. Remember to start slow, so at first don’t have the backing faster than 100 bpm. If there’s one apreggio that’s catching you out, practice it by itself first. You also try having 2 bars of each too.

Don’t worry about sounding ultra hip at first, at this point it is vital that you can change when the chord changes. You will have probably noticed that each of these arpeggios all contain notes from the C major scale, so why not just think of that? While there’s nothing wrong with thinking of the major scale over each chord, in jazz we tend to define the sound of each chord by focusing on the chord tones. By doing doing we are making each change rather than just playing in a key center.

3 To 7 Pattern

One reason why the ii-V progression works so well is because the 7^th of the minor 7^th chord drops down a semi-tone or fret to become the 3^rd of the dominant chord. This is sometimes called the note of resolution.

Jazz musicians frequently highlight this musician in their improvisation which makes it an important part of the jazz language. The following diagram shows his this technique can be applied to two octave ii-V arpeggios, but this pattern should ultimately be practiced all over the neck and in different keys.

Voice Leading Exercise

When learning how to play arpeggios on guitar, one very effective exercise that I teach to my students that helps them connect arpeggios together is to start at each degree of the arpeggio, then play four quarter notes, and then start the arpeggio of the next chord in the following bar with the arpeggio note the closest to the note you just finished on.

For example if you did this exercise over a ii-V-I in C major, the first chord would be D-7. If you start by playing the root then move up the arpeggio in quarter notes you will get to the note C on the 4^th beat of bar which is the 7^th of D-7.

The next chord in the bar as G7 and the closest arpeggio note of that chord to the ‘C’ from the D-7 is the B natural.

You can then play an ascending G7 arpeggio in quarter notes which will lead you to finish on the G note which resolves well into the ‘E’ natural in the last which is the third of C major 7. This exercise helps break you out of always starting from the root and gets you cool voice leading techniques into your improvisation.

I hope this introduction to how to play arpeggios on guitar has been useful and given you some material to practice on in the woodshed. Although, arpeggios are some of the first things we learn when we start to learn jazz guitar, I find that I am practicing and using them on a daily basis. Do you have a favorite way of practicing arpeggios? If so, share your thoughts in the comment section below.

How to Play Arpeggios on Guitar from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today

Because there are so many versions of this song, I will be teaching two different ways you can play the opening riff. The first version of the riff the Magic Sam way and the second version is the Buddy Guy version.

Both of these riffs happen at the same part of the intro and through the verse, so you can use either one or even exchange them if you want to.

If you want to learn how to play sweet home chicago as a solo guitar piece like I do at the beginning of the video, check out this article.

Sweet Home Chicago Video Lesson

Click here to view the embedded video.

Magic Sam Way

In the key of E there are lots of 2 note diad (2 notes played together) riffs on the top 2 strings that blues guitarists use. In this example Magic Sam uses a few of these popular shapes to play the riff as seen in the example below. On the original recording Robert Johnson played this riff using a bottleneck so sliding into each of these diads from a half step below gives a similar feel. Check out the video below to see Magic Sam playing this riff.

Buddy Guy Way

The second riff uses the same rhythm figures and is actually originally a BB king riff! Listen to ‘Please Love Me’ on the Live at the Regal album. Buddy Guy actually admits to learning this shape from BB himself in his hotlicks DVD.

Check out this great energetic performance of Buddy Guy playing it.

Sweet Home Chicago Riff Structure

Now that we have the riff under our fingers, let’s check out where in the form we need to play it. Sweet Home Chicago is a 12 bar blues in the key of E. When playing the riff in the intro, play it in bars 1, 3 and 5 of the progression as seen on the chart below. If you are playing this without any guitarist you can always play some cool chords in between the riff to expand your chordal chops. When the lyrics come in and the verse starts only play the riff between the vocals in bars 3, and 7.

I hope this lesson has helped you learn one of my favorite electric blues guitar riffs. What’s your favorite version of Sweet Home Chicago? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

How to Play Sweet Home Chicago from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today

Guitarist’s such as T-Bone Walker, Gatemouth Brown, and Hollywood Fats were masters at using jazz chords in blues. In today’s video lesson I show how to play blues guitar chords by using some common jazz voicings to spice up your chord work.  Click play below to watch today’s video lesson

Learn How to Play Blues Guitar Chords Video Lesson

Click here to view the embedded video.

The chart below shows all the chords played in the video over a 12 bar blues progression in the key of A. Notice that the E9 chord shape is the same as the D9, just moved up two frets. As mentioned in the video you can always slide a whole or half step below or above blues chords.

Blues Guitar Chords Rhythms

Slow blows tunes are often subdivided into triplets which give it that 12/8 feel and one way you can make use of this is to accent the triplets in your comping. The chord lick below shows how you can do this by playing constant triplets on the A9 chord before sliding into a D9.

Of course there are many other jazz chords that sound great in a blues setting, but this lesson is to get you started on playing some jazz voicings.  I hope this lesson helps you learn how to play blues guitar chords. What are some of your favorite jazz chords to use in the blues? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Learn How to Play Blues Guitar Chords Video Lesson from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today

In short, Billy Bean was a fluent bebop jazz guitar player who’s influence can be heard in other great Philadelphia jazz guitarists such as Pat Martino and even Kurt Rosenwinkel.

Besides being a great a soloist, Billy Bean also composed fantastic bebop workout tunes, and for an upcoming guitar duo project I decided it would be great to play one of his tunes called ‘Fat Feet’.

Upon noticing there wasn’t much Billy Bean theme’s available online, I decided that some other jazz guitarists would like to have a go at getting their fingers round this workout. This article has a lead sheet for ‘Fat Feet’ as well as a few of his licks.

Fat Feet Lead Sheet

As you can see, the chord progression isn’t exactly Take The A Train, but it provides a great workout to stretch out on your bebop jazz guitar chops as well as improve your jazz guitar comping.

Check out the video below for an audio example of this chart. Billy Bean recorded this tune a couple of times with different line ups and changed the A section melodies slightly each time, and the B section completely.

This version is taken from his duo kitchen session with John Pisano from the late 1950′s as heard below.

Fat Feet Audio

Click here to view the embedded video.

No doubt about it, this tune is a tough one to blow on, especially the first 4 bars. Here’s a cool lick from Billy’s solo to get over the tricky changes.

Billy Bean Lick

I hope that you enjoyed this lesson on how to play one of my favorite Billy Bean tunes. Even if ‘Fat Feet’ doesn’t make it into your set list, it’s still a great tune to have a burn on from time to time. What’s your favorite Billy Bean tune? Share your thoughts in the comment below.

Billy Bean Bebop Workout from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today

If you would like to learn more about how to play single lines as chords check out this article. For those wanting to check out the different harmonization possibilities of a single note melody follow this link.

Let’s face it, there’s no shortage of chords or scales to play on the guitar, but how do we use them in chords and solo jazz guitar arrangements?

This article aims to demystify this process and give jazz guitarists a practical approach to chord soloing and chord melody guitar playing so that you can easily play scales in chords and use them when you’re improvising.

Perhaps the most common type of jazz chords that guitarists learn are drop 2 chords.

As great and important to learn as drop 2 guitar chords are, there are a few inversions that provide difficult stretches or simply just don’t sound particularly hip, so most jazz guitarists use chord voicings from a different family that has the same melody note.

Just to clarify, when I am referring to harmonizing a scale in chords I mean harmonizing each note from a scale with a chord and keeping the chord type the same which is different from harmonizing each degree of a scale and obtaining different chord types.

The following diagram shows how a C major arpeggio can be harmonized using a mix of different chord voicings. Notice that a harmonized C major 7 arpeggio can also be played in drop 2 chords because each of those voicings has one of the melody notes on top.

Instead of using drop 2 voicings here, I’ve used a mix 4^th voicings and close-position.

C Major 7 Arpeggio Intervals: R, 3^rd, 5^th, 7

C Major 7 Arpeggio Notes Names:  C, E, G, B

C Major 7 Arpeggio in Chords

To take this idea one step further, we can then to start to look at playing entire scales in chords. The next example shows how scales can be played in chords on the middle strings of the guitar.

Note that I have used a #11 major 7^th chord instead of an 11^th to keep each voicing some sort of major 7^th chord. Check out this article to learn more about #11 chords:

Like with the first example I have written the first set of voicings with the melody note on the 2^nd string, and the second set with the melody note on the top E string.

C Lydian Scale Intervals: ^{R, 2nd, 3rd, #4, 5th, 6th, 7th}

C Lydian Scale Notes Names:  C, D, E, F#, G, A, B

C Lydian Scale in Chords

Dorian Scale in Chords

Like the major scale, the minor scale can also be played in chords. In this case I have harmonized a C minor Dorian scale using a combination of different chord types as highlighted below.

C Dorian Scale Intervals: ^{R, 2nd, b3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, b7th}

C Dorian Scale Notes Names:  C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb

Practicing Scales in Chords

In order to gain the most from this exercise you must start out by playing each voicing of the scale slowly.  When you can play one new voicing per bar cleanly and in time, try playing two voicings per bar, then 4.

Remember that these voices are just a guidance of what I would use, so feel free to change them for other major 7^th voicings that have the same melody note on top. Practice chord scales in different keys, and remember that you don’t have to play them with the roots on either, but they can sometimes be useful as a point of reference.

Start to create some chord licks too. For a little inspiration and some ideas, check out this article on 3 must know jazz guitar licks. What are some of your favorite ways to practice soloing in chords? Share your thoughts below.

You Don’t Have to Be Joe Pass to Play Solo Jazz Guitar Arrangements from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today

Don’t worry there’s still plenty of great lesser known classic jazz guitarists that I want to write about, but as a British guitarist myself I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and playing with some fantastic musicians that are worth knowing about.

Having played at many of gigs and jams over the years, I’ve met dozens of fantastic players and it would take would take me forever to write about all of them, therefore this entry will focus on the guitarists who mainly play in the straight ahead classic jazz guitar style.

 British Jazz Guitar Legend Terry Smith

Louis Stewart

When it comes to great Irish guitarists, the rockers have Rory Gallagher and the jazzers get Louis Stewart. Although Louis is based in Ireland, he has developed an international recognition as a respected jazz guitarist.

Because Louis rarley plays in the UK I’ve never met or played with him, but I’ve acquired many of his LP’s and CD’s over the years. ‘Louis the First’ is a much sought after out of print vinyl featuring some of Louis finest playing, although Louis himself passes it off as a demo because he never got paid for it!

Luckily there is a wide range of videos of Louis on YouTube that span his entire career, ranging from black and white footage of his early days with Benny Goodman to professionally filmed jazz guitar duet performances with Mundell Lowe and great solo guitar performances that showcase Louis master chordal chops.

The interesting thing about these videos is that they show the strong influence of different jazz guitar greats throughout Louis career such as Pat Martino, Jim Hall and Kenny Burrell. Check out the early clip below of Louis playing with Benny Goodman showing off a strong Kenny Burrell influence.

Louis is an archtop guitar enthusiast, usually seen with a variety of different big bodied Gibson and Guild archtop that producing a thick warm jazz guitar sound.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Adrian Ingram

Readers of this website will probably be aware of Adrian already as he has contributed a lot of information for the articles on this site and is a mentor and inspiration of mine.

Internationally recognized as player, writer and teacher, Adrian has contributed to jazz guitar extensively over the years. Adrian was one of the founders of the popular Just Jazz Guitar Magazine and has written for many guitar magazines and publications over the years, but one of his most famous publications and acclaimed is the definitive biography of Wes Montgomery.

Although Adrian is an endorsed Bendetto player and has acclaimed publications on Gibson jazz guitars (335, 175, L5), he is usually found his playing western swing on telecasters in real ale bars, so if jazz, telecasters and good beer is what you’re into, check him out.

Adrian’s playing draws from a diverse range of guitar heros. On any given gig, Adrian can go from playing like Les Paul to Wes Montgomery by adjusting his technique and controls. Despite being able to emulate different guitar greats, Adrian remains a strong blues and hard bop player in his own right.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dave Cliff

Dave Cliff has been a prominent figure on the London jazz scene for over 40 years now and has developed a strong reputation as a teacher and player.

Like myself, Dave once studied at the Leeds College of Music in the late 60’s with Bernie Cash and Peter Ind. Upon graduating, Dave moved to London and has since performed with many American jazz greats such as Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz, Nina Simone, Warren Vache, and Scott Hamilton.

Jazz guitar fans are in for a treat because Dave has a couple of albums available that he recorded with jazz guitar great Howard Alden on the Zephyr label which feature a healthy dosage of fine jazz transatlantic guitar playing.

Although Dave owns a nolan period Gibson 175 which he bought new in the early 70’s, he usually plays cheaper guitars on gigs, most notably his Squier Bullet Strat with a humbucker in front proving that tone is in the fingers and not the gear.

Being a big Wes fan, Dave sometimes uses his thumb, but Wes biggest influence in Dave’s playing can be heard in his strong laid back swing feel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pat McCarthy

Over on the East Coast one jazz guitarist that always I enjoying listening to is Pat McCarthy. Pat has played with many of the UK’s leading jazz musicians and is involved with running the Grimsby Jazz club. Influenced by Wes, Django, and Barney, Pat is one of the best at capturing the sounds of the classic jazz guitarists.  I’ve only ever seen Pat play an old black ES-150 which seems to be his number 1 guitar.

Check out the video of him bellowing performing an accomplished solo guitar version of All The Things on his old Gibson archtop.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jim Mullen

To keep this article geographically interesting, the next guitarist is the great Scottish jazz guitar legend Jim Mullen. One aspect of Jim Mullen’s playing that separates him from the other guitarists in this article, is that like the great jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, Jim plays exclusively using his thumb.

Because Jim uses his thumb, his right hand technique is limited so he uses an abundance of guitar techniques such as hammers ons, pull offs, sliding and bending which results in smooth saxophone-like phrasing.

Like Dave Cliff, Jim isn’t into higher end gear and plays an Aria archtop through a small AER amp.

I’ve seen Jim live a few times and had the pleasure of playing with him at the Leeds College of Music. While his playing blew me into the ground, I learned a lot from his workshop and playing, and admired his gesture to the audience for applause after my solo before commencing his own.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Terry Smith

If you were playing guitar in the 60’s and lived in Britain you were most likely absorbing a healthy cocktail of blues, jazz and rock n roll when it was fresh on the scene. Terry Smith is one of the finest British guitarists of this generation and mixed these styles in the fashion of American greats Grant Green and Wes Montgomery.

Having only discovered Terry recently thanks to jazz guitar historian Adrian Ingram, I am still tracking down as many recordings of Terry as I can find, but one CD that I have been listening to on almost a daily basis at the moment is Fallout.

From what I know Terry is still performs around London to this day, but has little to no internet presence. Luckily the liner notes to his album ‘Fallout’ are well written and include personal notes from Terry himself sharing stories about his career.

Terry has remained fond of the Gibson ES-330 aka the Grant Green guitar throughout his career and his Fallout album showcases some of my favourite recorded sounds of the instrument.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Other British Jazz Guitarists

Writing about all the great British jazz guitarists would take numerous articles, but I hope you have enjoyed reading and listening to some of the guitarists who have influenced my playing.

Some other great British jazz guitarists who deserve a mention are Trevor Owen, Ike Issacs, Mike Outram, Chris Walker, Colin Oxley, Mike Walker, Phil Robson, Gary Potter, and Martin Taylor. Of course, I can’t forget some of the greats I studied with such as Jamie Taylor and Pete Skraloff either. If there’s enough interest I’ll write a follow up article on these great guitarists.

Who are some of your favourite British jazz musicians? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

4 Great British Jazz Guitarists You Need To Know About from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today

Joe Pass is one of the most influential players of jazz guitar so I have decided to explain how to play and break down this fast lick he plays at the end of his composition ‘C.E.D’.

For those that don’t have it, the ‘Sound of Synanon’ album is essential listening for every jazz guitar fan fan. The album was recorded just have Joe come out rehabilitation and features some of his best single line playing recorded. Here’s the lick Joe Plays at the end.

If you would like to hear this lick, fast forward to around 2.50 in this video to hear Joe play it

Click here to view the embedded video.

As illustrated on the example above, this lick uses two common jazz patterns. The first one is what’s referred to as the ‘Coltrane Pattern’, which is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th degree of the parent mode or scale, which in this case is the major scale.

To use the Coltrane Pattern over a C major 7^th or C dominant 7^th chord, play the notes C, D, E, and G. This pattern can be adapted as needed for different chord types. For example, if you wanted to use it over a minor 7th chord, just flattend the third.

Joe plays the 1235 pattern through the sequence of 4ths, which in this example are C, F, Bb, Eb, and Ab.

The Coltrane pattern is a commonly used piece of jazz language and there’s many ways you can use it in your own playing. Here’s a cool bebop lick that uses the lick over the II chord, which is D-7 in this case. Also note the use of the G dominant 7th bebop scale over the V chord.

If you would like to learn more about bebop scales and their applications, take a look at this article.

After the modulation of Coltrane pattern licks, Joe then plays a descending diminished shape. Whenever a b9 is added to a dominant 7^th arpeggio in place of the root it can be treated as a diminished chord.

For example if you have a G7 chord, and replace the ‘G’ with ‘Ab’, the chord can then be seen as four different diminished shapes: Ab, B, D, and F.

Those who have read my b9 chords article will know that diminished chords are symmetrical. The same rules apply for the diminished arpeggios and scales. Click this link to read the b9 chords article if you would like to learn more about this concept.

The great thing about this is that you only need to learn one diminished arpeggio that can be moved around the neck to play in all positions of this guitar.

Each of these diminished arpeggios is a minor third apart, so when thinking of diminished arpeggios over the dominant chord, you can just move the same shape up 3 frets.

Thinking of dominant 7^th chords as diminished arpeggios is especially useful for improvising over the rhythm changes progression. The lick below shows a Johnny Smith pattern that I transcribed from his solo of ‘What’s New’ which demonstrated a cool variation on this movable pattern.

I hope that you have enjoyed this Joe Pass lick lessons and the concepts within this lick will be useful in your own playing. Remember to practice the lick very slowly at first, and practice the patterns within the lick in differnet keys and apply to different standards and tunes that you know. What do you think of this Joe Pass lick? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

1 Fast Joe Pass Lick Every Guitarist Can Play from Jamie Holroyd Guitar - Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Today