Wynton On Improving Improvisation Skills

how do you get better at learning how to tell a story through your improvisation and just how can you help do that first who i listen to because my father's a jazz musician i was always listening to live first i listen to him all the time then the musicians i heard clark terry sweet citizen blue mitchell those were trumpet players were like mentors to me i knew them so i was always hanging around them when they came to new orleans on recordings miles davis clifford brown freddie helper or the main three that i listened to on on on recording of course as i grew older and learned more that expanded to louis armstrong and musicians from earlier generations who i would not have listened to too ignorant to listen to them i began to incorporate him roy eldridge who i also met when i was in high school but he was he was so much older than me i didn't have the proper respect i wish i could go back to that time and reclaim the the the time and the opportunity to talk with him and learn from him so in that way i want to encourage you to expand your circle of listening from contemporaries to the entire history of our instrument and uh it's important to get a historical perspective on the instrument and it's fun so i would say that in terms of developing your solos the construction of your solo i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you the name three or four of the greatest musicians in construction louis armstrong i want you to learn a solo by lewis armstrong uh on something called tight like this okay it's from the hot seven or something i think it's recorded in 1928 first just if you could play that solo alone try to play it don't just listen to it because he's playing it and you give you the illusion you can play it because when he's playing it it sounds real easy when you start playing it you're gonna say hmm okay uh uh a great solo for construction is charlie parker embraceable you but it's the one that starts going boo bee bee dee doo dee [Music] [Music] bird is such a poet so check out how bird constructs his phrases and don't learn like what i call generic bebop go to the source dizzy gillespie once told me something about charlie parker he said man when all the rest of us play what we call bebop we play fast runs and then we finish with a melody when charlie parker played the whole thing was melody so that way of construction another good thing is a good solo to learn is miles davis solo off of uh someday my prince will come a blues called francing or no blues it's a good uh good to get you give you a sense of construction also it's good to read big spiderbeck on lewis armstrong if you read what big spiderbeg says he realized when he first heard louis armstrong play he's talking about how to construct the soul finally the real master of construction in our music is the loneliest monk get it now we call this monk's time just check out monk's comping and his soul because he knows how to construct the solo thank you yes sir great question [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: OLD SCHOOL-Wynton Marsalis TV

Views: 51,761

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Id: dzcAVW5c4gI

Length: 3min 28sec (208 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 12 2022