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Recommended for Guitar Players:

Jazz Guitar CD & Guide (has a set of needed 83 Common Jazz


Chords, diagrammed)
Pro's Jazz Phrases, Treble clef,book and CD (simple reading skills
needed)
Standards I and II Treble Charts and CDs Sets, with Interpretation Cues
Jazz Improv Soloing DVD Course
Joe Pass Guitar Style book and CD
For Bass Players, use in this order:
If you don't know what a diminished or a m7b5 chord is: Bass DVD
Course first.
Jazz Bass CD & Guide
Elec. Bass Lines No. 3 for intervals and honing some simple
reading in all keys, knowing your neck more.
Pro's Jazz Phrases, Bass Clef, book and CD simple reading skills
needed
Standards I and II Bass Charts and CDs Sets, with Interpretation Cues
Jazz Improv For Bass book and CD need reading skills
Jazz Improv Soloing DVD Course

After practicing chordal arpeggio notes, get into chordal


movements (progressions). Its really not hard at all.
Just take a little at a time, a few chord changes at a
time, then you start to function in the real music world..
All good music functions chordally.
You can start with the common ii V7 I and the
turnaround (I vi ii V7).

The ii V7 I is the most common chord progression.


Study and memorize the CYCLE, most chords go in a
Cycle for awhile, break a Cycle and start at another
place on the Cycle.
The minor chord could move anywhere. Ex. In the key of
G, a chord can go from C to Cm and right back to G or
down the chordal scale (in this case the G chordal scale,
called immovable do - because in the chordal scale I is
always I and ii is always ii, and so forth) to a Bm. And
the minor usually moves to the next cycle, to an E7 (or
Em) and so on towards the resolution of ii V7 (Am D7
G), called the movable do.
Turnarounds, I-VI-ii-V7 I,..... or iii VI ii V I, thats the
immovable do, the 1 of the key is permanent.
The movement ii V7 I is called movable do because it
can happen anywhere inside the key. Ex.: Dbm7 going
to Gb9 will always be ii inside the ii V I movement, even
if in the key of the song it is not the ii. For example, Body
and Souls has multiple ii V7s each starting on a
different chord: Fm B7 , Em A7, F7 Bbm.
So, whatever key were in, when inside a
movement that behaves like ii V7 I, any minor

will be considered a ii. Any 7th, 9th, 11th or


13th will be considered a V7. And finally any
major will be considered a I.
So, if you always see a minor chord as a ii, you
get a fine handle on the chordal movements, and
your ear finally takes over. The chord changing to
a minor is usually an indication of ii V7, maybe
resolving to the I. With that idea in mind youll
start to hearing the chordal movements
everywhere and anticipate where the chords of
any tune is going to.
There are jumps that are hard to hear, when the
jump is to a iii or vi (from the chord before). They
are hard to hear because they are closely related
to the I:
Imaj7 is iii7 without the I: Cmaj7 is Em7
without the C
I6 is just and inversion of vim7: C6 is
equivalent to Am7
So at first you have to guess it (Is this a iii or a vi
chord?), like in Stella By Starlight.
Also its harder when the chords move out of the
chordal scale key, like Cmaj7 to an Ab13 or to
Ebmaj7. But after getting used with the
movements above, youll get these also.

Usually there is great logic in tune-writing as to where

chords are going to, easily obtainable by practicing a lot


of chordal tone arpeggios too to train your ear and good
interval studies (like my "Elec. Bass Lines No. 3"), and
pattern studies books like the Oliver Nelson Sax
Patterns book (however this is in the treble, "trouble"
clef).
When you get through my "Pro's Jazz Phrases" book
and the Standards I tape w/corrected Real Book charts,
the next step is the Joe Pass Guitar Style for guitar
players (Joe Pass is in the "Jazz Improv For Bass" for
bassists) -- I've used the transcriptions of Bird (Charlie
Parker) for some teaching but find them unhandy to get
across the Jazz improv. His lines move smoothly for a
short time, then in the heat of passionate playing, there's
a lot of notes that are both hard to read (or just plain
wrong transcribing - there's tons of errata in the Parker
stuff) plus the fingerings on elec. bass are just
prohibitive.
The continuity of Joe's lines for bass (in my book, "Jazz
Improv For Bass" great, chordal connection lines as well
as the steps of how to use back-cycling, chord subs,
stacked triads etc.) are just amazing and very instructive
as to uses of sub-chords, moving chord patterns around
(progressions), and for instant practice of getting used to
the use of lines for sub-chords as connecting patterns

in-between.
Of course Joe Pass is not your usual guitarist but uses
the sax patterns, the subtle uses for inuendos of chordal
triads, stacked of course, chordal substitutes -- Joe was
a master of continuity of soloing and his finer transcribed
lines (no mistakes here too I've found, I made sure he's
very well-transcribed) are impeccable exercises to get
your fingerings moving right to what you finally want to
use for improvisation -- the connections between the
hands and ears can be easily made with these
transcribed Joe Pass solos.
For the ultimate in Jazz Improv, be sure to get the Jazz
Improv Soloing DVD Course which shows all these on
guitar, and especially good for bassists too, as much
reference is made to the lower strings (bass strings) and
is easy to understand, having the chords separated in
their categories, but also a chapter on how to "anticipate
chord changes", and connect the dots. Music is in both
the treble clef (for guitar and other lead instruments) and
bass clef for bassists and trombone.

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