Most Popular Lessons

Check out the attached PDF!

Check out the attached PDF!

Keep in mind, since making these videos, I now play the Dmaj 7 in the 7th bar. I got schooled by David Friedman for doing it the Bill Evans way and now I love the Dmaj7 and know the history of the tune! 

Talking about playing over parts of the tune.

🚨 Soloing Through the Changes Pt. 8 – Soloing with the Altered Scale

In Part 8, we explore the altered scale (seventh mode of melodic minor) as a way to create tension over dominant chords before resolving back to the tonic or next chord. This scale contains altered chord tones—♭9, ♯9, ♯11, and ♭13—which provide a wide palette of colors for jazz soloing.

Check out the attached PDF!

🎵 New Series Alert – Play A Great Standard In One Month!

We've spent the last two series taking a deep dive into two of the most important forms in jazz:

• Play A Great Blues In 3 Months
• Play A Great Rhythm Changes In 3 Months

Those 14-week series gave us plenty of time to develop comping, voicings, melodic vocabulary, substitutions, and improvisational concepts over forms that show up everywhere in jazz.

Now we're ready to move a little faster.

👉 Play A Great Standard In One Month

This is video, audio and a pdf all with etudes for the tune Turn Out The Stars by Bill Evans. 

It's a complicated tune, but I always think even the complicated tunes spell all the harmony out. It all makes sense musicially. 

The videos are below: 

Check out the attached PDF!

Check out the attached PDF!

In this exercise, the line is a little closer to a walking bass line with quarter notes. Keep the notes legato, and shoot for keeping the pedal down as much as possible with clean dampening in between the notes. Check out the attached PDF!