Josh Walsh @ Jazz-Library

Friday Mar 27 - Zoom Masterclass with Theron BrownWe'll be talking about the blues, solo phrasing, and creative inspiration. Come hangout, ask a question or even play for Theron and get feedback. RSVP Reader, Last week I showed you how a bebop dominant scale keeps chord tones landing on strong beats automatically. It's built right into the scale. As long as you keep the 8th notes going, the harmony takes care of itself. So this week we practiced using these bebop dominant scales to create...

Reader, We've come a long way learning to solo on the blues the last few months. And as we've learned, there's so much we can do with two blues scales. But as we start moving into more jazz-blues tunes, like Billie's Bounce, Now's the Time, or Blues for Alice, we need jazzier flavors in our solos. That means starting to think, a little bit at least, like the great bebop players. Meet the Dominant Bebop Scale Up to this point, we've focused on blues scales, which belong to the key. We've been...

Reader, A couple months ago, Dave Frank joined us for a masterclass (replay). Our session ran long. Near the end, when most people had already dropped off, he mentioned "short, medium, and long phrases," and how mixing all three gives a solo real variety. I think he was responding to Jeff's playing at the time, but honestly, I felt like he was talking directly to me. I'm guilty of playing too many short phrases back to back. So, I took this to heart and have been working on it. Jazz phrasing...

Did you miss yesterday's workshop with Arthur Migliazza? Catch the replay at the bottom of this email. ⬇️ Reader, I'd been soloing using single note melodies using the blues scale for a while, but something didn't sound right. Oscar, Monty, and Gene Harris all played these melodic accents that I couldn't place. It wasn't until I really dug into their recordings that I understood what they were doing. I call these Bluesy Double Stops, a term I stole from my friend Adam Maness. It's when we add...

Reader, "The degree to which a piano player can sound like two or more people depends on the independence between their hands." That's Arthur Migliazza, award-winning boogie woogie pianist. This Tuesday he'll be my guest on our free masterclass to teach us how to build a bulletproof left hand that holds its groove no matter what the right hand is doing. Here's what we'll cover: The importance of the left hand ostinato patterns Techniques to learn a new pattern Exercises to build hand...

Reader, I saw a video on YouTube where Jon Batiste showed off his secret "Jon Batiste Blues Scale", which was a 10 note scale. Don't get me wrong, Jon Batiste plays a mean blues. He could probably get a chicken to sing the blues. But regular folk like us need some more constraints, and the 6 note blues scale we've been playing works really well. But, does this mean we'll never be able to play the same lines as Jon? No. There's an even simpler way to get there, and I think it's just as...

Reader, On C Jam Blues, the Oscar Peterson Trio plays something I want you to hear. They extend the 12-bar blues form to 16 bars by adding 4 bars of stop time at the end. The band hits once, then drops out completely, leaving Oscar to fill the silence with a 4-bar blues phrase that drives back to the top of the form. Oscar does this for the first time at 3:05, after the head. Stop time is when the rhythm section plays unison hits and drops out, leaving the soloist to play over silence. It's a...