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50 Jazz Blues Licks is an exclusive series of video guitar lessons by David Hamburger covering the jazz blues styles of historically great guitarists like Geoge Benson, Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass, and many others. A new lick will be released each week, so be sure to subscribe and check back often!

There’s always something new to discover, and I have to admit I was not hip to Blue Mitchell except in name prior to developing this course. Then it turned out he was everywhere – on these groovy Lou Donaldson records, of course, but also as the trumpet player during the heyday of the Horace Silver quintet and on numerous LPs of his own and of other favorites of mine throughout the sixties. He’s a great musician to learn from, as he embodies a classic balance of blues licks and bebop lines delivered with a forthright tone and tremendous yet even-keeled rhythmic propulsion. Much as I love, say, Lee Morgan (and I do), his playing is so full of cockeyed attitude, smeared, slippery phrasing and jaw-dropping doubletime that, more often than not, it’s just more fun to listen to than transcribe. It’s not unlike the difference between mid-sixties and mid-nineties Buddy Guy. At any rate, here’s a cool chromatic turnaround of Blue Mitchell’s to get you from the V back to I.

Video Guitar Lesson

If you like these guitar lessons, be sure to also check out Frank Vignola’s Jazz Up Your Blues, which showcases essential jazz blues vocabulary and techniques, Mark Stefani’s Jazzed Blues Assembly Lines, which takes you on a sonic learning tour through the funky rhythm and blues stylings and fretboard concepts of top jazz blues players, and of course all of David Hamburger’s courses.