I will cheerfully admit to anyone who will listen that I dropped out of the graduate jazz studies program at Manhattan School of Music after one semester. At that point, after four years as an undergraduate music major and two years of living in New York, I had determined that some hot new jazz guitar player might well take the city by storm in the coming decade, but if so, it definitely wouldn't be me.

And yet, after a couple of decades of playing and teaching various other kinds of roots music, I came to the conclusion that all I'd really wanted to know all along was: how do jazz guys play the blues?

And with that incredibly simple and specific definition, I was finally able to make some headway.

Mostly, it helped me listen more closely, as I attempted to hear anything on my favorite recordings that happened during a twelve-bar blues progression, but didn't sound like blues licks – at least, not the licks I knew.

I was focused on the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, so I was listening to guitar players like Grant Green, Kenny Burrell and George Benson. But records of those three musicians led me to people I might not have otherwise discovered: saxophonists Hank Mobley, Stanley Turrentine, Lou Donaldson and Jimmy Forrest; pianists Wynton Kelly and Tommy Flanagan, trumpeters Lee Morgan and Blue Mitchell.

I was initially pretty intimidated by the idea of learning from horn players in particular. But the things they were doing sounded so interesting, and so cool, I eventually found myself spending more time on that than just about anything else.

And I'm glad I did. When it comes to learning how to improvise, going phrase by phrase and line by line through horn and piano solos has been about the most illuminating thing I've ever done.

And it has been the most fun way I've ever learned about soloing. If you start with music you love listening to, it turns learning jazz from an endless task of playing scales and voicings in every possible key to a delightful project of learning cool licks from great musicians and figuring out how internalize them enough that you can apply them to your own solos.

Basically, if what you want to be able to do is play the cool sounds you hear when jazz guys play the blues on those classic Blue Note, Prestige and Riverside albums, you just have to do the same thing you did to learn B.B. King or Albert Collins licks: get with the records, and figure it out.

Now, I realize, this is easier said than done. It takes a bit of knowing what the underlying chord changes are, and knowing a bit of what to expect in the scale department before you go in. And, full disclosure, it is all a lot easier if you have a way to slow down the recordings along the way.

Which I why I will be teaching exactly what I've learned about it all in this Saturday's workshop, Blue Note Blues: the jazz/blues chord changes, the kinds of licks you need to play over them, and what scales and arpeggios those licks are based on.

But instead of learning all the scales and arpeggios first, we're going to do it the blues way: starting with the licks.

We'll take one song – Hank Mobley's "Smokin'," from 1962 – and look at two choruses by Grant Green, one chorus by Mobley, and one chorus by Wynton Kelly. We'll check out each chorus on its own, to learn how to move through the progression, then compare how these three different musicians handle each key moment in the progression.

Because the good news is, if you're talking about the twelve-bar blues, even when jazz musicians are involved, there are really just a handful of chord changes and scales that matter, and they crop up in the same places over and over, regardless of the player. 

There are ways people get from the I to the IV chord, ways they play the turnaround, and ways they play altered dominant licks to set up the turnaround.

By seeing those moments in the context of a complete chorus, and then A/B'ing three or four different ways to handle those key moments in the progression, you can start to build your own vocabulary of jazz/blues licks, while seriously improving your understanding of why jazz musicians play the blues the way they do.

And yes – I'll have all four choruses completely tabbed out, along with any other licks or examples we need to discuss.

To join me for the workshop (or watch a replay of the live stream on your own schedule), sign up using the link below:

Blue Note Blues Workshop – Sign Up Now

In today's Youtube lesson, I break down a Hank Mobley lick from the upcoming workshop, one of the chromatic moves he uses to get from the I to the IV chord. You can find it here:

Hank Mobley Plays From I To IV

More soon,

David