Jazz Guitar Lessons

A new mini lesson has been added to the Jazz Guitar Licks website: Take the “A” Train – Jazz Guitar Solo Study (ML 13).

In this lesson, we’ll explore 4 Levels of 2–5–1–6 Jazz Guitar Chords.

Whether you're a developing player building your jazz foundation or an intermediate guitarist looking to expand your chord vocabulary, these four levels will give you a structured path to stronger, more musical comping.

This lesson comes with a PDF (Give What You Want).

Barry Harris explained that the fully diminished seventh chord sits at the center of the system.

By making simple chromatic adjustments to its notes, it naturally resolves into dominant, minor 6, or major 6 chords.

In this lesson, we’re going to take a fresh look at the major scale, but instead of running through it step by step, we’ll explore it in intervals of fifths.

This approach helps you break out of linear thinking on the fretboard and start hearing the scale in a more harmonic, open way.

This lesson is about one of the most useful and colorful substitution concepts in jazz harmony, which is to replace an altered dominant 7 chord (7b9) with a diminished 7 chord.

You'll find here 4 easy exercises and a YouTube short for playing it on guitar.

Welcome to this guitar lesson, where we’ll explore a chord melody arrangement of the classic jazz standard Take The "A" Train by Billy Strayhorn.

This tune, famously associated with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, offers a perfect blend of swing rhythm and rich harmony—ideal for showcasing the beauty of chord melody on guitar.

We’ll break down the melody, harmonize it using jazz voicings, and focus on smooth voice leading to bring the tune to life as a solo guitar piece.

Guest post by Kenny Thompson from the Facebook group The Art of Jazz Guitar.

This guitar lesson is a chord melody arrangement of a Charlie Parker blues head named “Bigfoot”.

In this lesson, we’ll explore how diminished 7 chords can be used to create smooth, voice-led connections between diatonic chords, adding tension, movement, and harmonic richness to your playing.

When exploring improvisation over a major 7 chord on guitar, pentatonic scales offer versatile and melodic options.

This approach allows you to expand your phrasing and musical expression over a single chord using the relative major and minor pentatonic scales.

Guest Post By Dennis Winge

Coltrane changes are fun to play on. 

If you're intimidated by Giant Steps, it could simply be the tempo of the tune. 

Just because Trane's version is fast doesn't mean you can't enjoy using the changes at slower tempos, in smaller increments, and on generally easier tunes.  

In this guitar lesson with free PDF and YouTube short we’ll learn how to turn a dominant 7th chord into a diminished 7th chord.

Free PDF transcription with tab / notation available on GUMROAD and PAYHIP.

Welcome to this lesson on a classic jazz guitar lick that navigates through a 2-5-1 progression in C using some essential jazz concepts.

Here is a guitar study in chord melody of the theme of "Blue Monk" by Thelonious Monk.

The main theme of "Blue Monk" is a simple yet soulful 12-bar blues in Bb. 

You can watch the YouTube Short video and download the PDF transcription with tab.

Thanks For Your Support.

This lesson with free PDF (or give what you want) proposes an easy jazz guitar lick built with an A major 9 arpeggio A (1), C# (3), E (5), G# (7), B (9) including two passing tones Bb (b2 / b9) and G (b7).

"Blues For John" by Matteo Mancuso is a compelling funky jazz, blues piece in F that showcases his exceptional guitar skills and deep understanding of blues music.

This lesson provides a free PDF transcription of the main theme.