Licks & Transcriptions

49 Essential Jazz Guitar Licks With Tabs and Analysis

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Practicing jazz guitar licks is a very important aspect of jazz learning. Particularly when these licks are transcribed from improvisations of the greatest jazz musicians of all times (Cannonball Adderley, Barney Kessel, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Christian, Emily Remler, George Benson, Grant Green,  Herb Ellis, Jim Hall, Jimmy Raney, Joe Pass, John Scofield, Kenny Burrell, Charlie Parker, Mike Stern and Wes Montgomery) who helped forge the history of jazz music.

This eBook available for download in a PDF format contains 49 effective jazz guitar phrases and patterns with TABS and notation applied to common jazz chord progressions . These patterns both for guitar teachers and students cover different styles from swing to blues, to hard-bop to bebop.

These essential jazz lines arranged for jazz guitarists from beginner to advanced come with easy-to-understand explanations of one of the greatest players improvisational techniques.

Learning these jazz transcriptions make it possible to understand the approach of the great names of jazz to different chord progressions found in many standards as turnarounds, minor and major II-V-I, blues progressions, modal playing.

Learn how to make your jazz guitar solos sound more melodic and intentional with target notes and enclosures.

In this lesson, you’ll discover how to aim for important chord tones and approach them using simple scale or chromatic notes.

You’ll also learn basic enclosures, a classic jazz technique that adds movement and a more “jazzy” feel to your lines.

With easy-to-follow explanations and practical guitar patterns, this lesson is a great starting point for beginning jazz players

Autumn leaves is one of the most popular non-American jazz standards on pick-up gigs and records. It is a must-know tune for any jazz guitarist and a great choice when you want to play both chords and melody on guitar. This guitar lesson provides an easy chord melody arrangement to play this famous jazz tune.

Giant Steps is one of those tunes in jazz that sends a bolt of fear through a lot of young or even experienced jazz musicians.

It certainly does that to me anyway! The fast harmonic rhythm and the seemingly distant relationships between the chords means it is a very daunting challenge.

However, there is a very cool and simple way of practicing navigating through these changes and it involves using 3 different pentatonic scales.

The music of Thelonious Monk is music which evokes many different emotions and ideas in a huge demographic of musicians and instrumentalists. With that in mind, the emotions and ideas evoked by legendary jazz guitarist, Peter Bernstein, in this showcase album range from childish playfulness, faithful to the source of the music, to coherent and thorough modern jazz playing in the upper echelons of technical and interactive ability.

It’s been noted previously in reviews, at the time of the album’s release, that a collection of Monk tunes by a guitarist is a rare occurrence that was a huge breath of fresh air to all those who knew about its existence. I’ve never heard such faithful music made with such individualism and taste without any sense imitation. This is most definitely Bernstein plays Monk and not the other way around.

When a jazz beginner starts to improvise over a II-V-I progression, he generally plays arpeggios corresponding to the chords of the sequence.

In other words, he learns to play minor arpeggios over the minor chord (II), dominant 7th arpeggio over the 7th chord (V) and major arpeggio over the major 7 chord (I). This way the harmony is highlighted without taking risks.

In the long-run there is nothing exciting. That's why there is a nice trick used by number of jazz players to add smoothness to a dominant line. This is a little tip that makes all the difference which consists of playing a major 7th arpeggio over the V7 rooted on its b7 degree.

A new video has been uploaded on the YouTube channel. It is a Barry Galbraith comping study named "Like someone". This is the last study from the Barry Galbraith book "Jazz guitar comping series, vol #3" published by Jamey Aebersold. 

Most of the accompaniments studies (comps) in this book are designed to accompany a melody or an improvised solo with bass lines like a pianist would do. It is a very great book to practice jazz guitar comping.

A new video has been uploaded on the youtube channel. It is a jazz guitar transcription of the jazz standard "In a mellow tone" composed by Duke Ellington and performed by Kenny Burrell in 1990.

 Here is the Kenny Burrell version on which the transcription is based and the link to the album dedicated to Duke Ellington.

In this lesson we will see how to use the minor pentatonic scale over a II-Valt-I sequence.

The principle being to play three minor pentatonic scales spaced apart of 1 semitone one from the other in order to bring out interesting colors to your jazz lines.

Here is a free transcription of the famous soul-jazz tune "Sookie sookie" by Grant Green. 

This lesson is about a 12-bar blues in the key of Bb included two guitar transcriptions with tabs : a guitar walking bass line for the accompaniment and a guitar improvisation to solo over.

Note that this study is based on a common blues jazz progression? but with a descending chromatic progression in bars 7 & 8 using three dominant 7th chords (Bb7, A7, Ab7) to approach G7 at the end of the bar 8.

Bb7 | Eb7 | Bb7 | % | 

Eb7 | Edim7 | Bb7 A7 | Ab7 G7 |

C-7 | G7 | Bb7 G7 | C-7 F7 | 

Guide tones are the notes in a chord which leads or gives harmonic pull toward the next chord, these are an excellent way to study and absorb the sound of any chord progression. 

Guide tones are used to outline chord progressions in an improvisation.

They are most of the time the 3rd and the 7th because this is what determines whether a chord is major, minor, or dominant. 

This jazz guitar lesson explains how to solo over common jazz chord progressions by using guide tones.

Mastering arpeggios is inevitable for anyone who wants to improve its sense of improvisation and bring more musicality to its playing.

Practicing and mastering them is a necessity for all jazz guitarists, indeed arpeggios are great tools to improvise over chord changes and jazz standards. 

You'll find at the end of this lesson a basic blues study in C showing how to connect dominant 7 arpeggios and here a serie of Mini Lessons with tab, PDF guitar pro file and short video for practicing arpeggios a little more closely.

A new video has just been uploaded on the youtube channel. This lesson contains the 21 most recent jazz guitar licks & transcriptions posted on the channel. 

Here is the summary :

1. 10 Kenny Burrell licks
2. II-V7alt-I lick 
3. Clifford Brown solo transcription 
4. Eric Gale solo transcription 
5. Grant Green airegin solo transcription 
6. Duet in F - Berklee 
7. John Scofield Wee #1 
8. John Scofield Wee #2 
9. John Scofield Wee #3 
10. Dominant 7th lick 
11. Soul jazz lick 
12. Jazz blues lick 

When you want to play altered jazz guitar lines over a dominant 7th chord, there is an easy and efficient option that is to play a major triad starting on the #11 of the chord you want to improvise over.

This way you highlight the b7, #11 and b9 and add tension to your playing.

Let's take an example with a II-V-I sequence in the key of C major. The progression is Dm7 | G7alt | CMaj7.

A new video is online on the youtube channel since yesterday. This is a compilation of the best jazz guitar solo transcriptions posted on the youtube channel since one year. This video lesson contains transcriptions of great jazzmen as John Scofield, Charlie Christian, Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, Eric Gale. Here is the timeline:

Charlie Christian ( Benny's buggle) 00:00
Clifford Brown (Jordu) 01:23
Eric Gale (Too blue) 02:22
Grant Green (Grantstand) 02:59
Grant Green (Airegin) 04:00
Grant Green (N°1 Green street) 05:17
Jimmy Raney (Have you met miss Jones) 07:26
John Scofield (Wee) 07:56
Wes Montgomery (Full house) 08:50
Wes Montgomery (Full house) 09:42