PlayJazzGuitar.com Forum

BIG AL · Guest

salute guys..ok where do i start want to learn basic blues style jazz,

any good dvds books etc online resources?

players that influence me are george benson style,

need basic fingerings tab progressions etc..........thx in advance

Christian · Guest

If you want to learn to play in the George Benson style, you'll need a bit of time!

Best thing to do to play straight jazz is to really learn your chords. When you play solos, you are basically breaking up the chords into melodies and adding extra notes to them. Don;t bother with the modes and stuff till later.

Above all, listen to lots of jazz. Try to sing jazzy lines, and try and work out how to play them.

Not sure what books to recomend.

Hopr that's some help.

alfonso · Guest

Al,
Here's a good place to start, if your just starting out this site has tons on info., beginning chords, scales and everything in between...

http://guitar-primer.com Cool

Guest · Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 3:28 pm Post subject:

yea and practice practice lol

draqza · Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 205

Yeah... practice practice, jam a lot... If you get an account at www.wholenote.com you can set up midi jam tracks in lots of different styles to play along with, it's not great but it's better than nothing... it's great for training your ear, not necessarily to be able to automatically hear an interval or perfect pitch type training, but great just for hearing "this note sounds like ass against this chord."

Guest · Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:50 pm Post subject:

If you know the simple l-lV-V blues changes and a little about jazz structure jazz/blues is pretty easy. The Jazz knowledge applies with understanding extented chords and their substitutions.
You still want resolution, and will need an ability to use those extended chords, to resolve from above and below the tonic.
Duke Robillard has a video out on T-Bone Walker. Hal- Leonard. A nice place to start. Also, try to listen to Kenny Burrell, chitlins con carne or the midnight blue album.

Guest · Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 10:44 pm Post subject:

Buy some charlie christian records and start transcribing. Lonnie Johnson for a swing style more rooted in blues. Kenny Burrell too. theres some great resources online that describe charlie christian's approach to improvization. The patterns he used. Personally though, i'd try and get out of the patterns rut.

AZ

bluerag · Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 10

Do you know the 12 bar progression? That the basic thing. You can embelish or altewr it, you can do more things with it than with any more melodic progression.

12 bars have a lot of potential, explore it. Get a 12 bar backing track or record a 12 bar progression and jam over it with pentatonics, both major and minor, simple arpeggios and chromatics.

The most vital part is phrasing. Listen to different jazz cats to hear how this should be done. And I don't mean Eric Clapton, get to the core.

Having said that, there are many blues styles, I love acoustic country blues most, Gary Davis, Blind Blake, Paul Geremia, Cephas and Wiggins... but that's yet another philosophy of guitar playing.

Edit: And for a successful marriage of blues and jazz, go to the roots and explore Lonnie Johnson.