50 Jazz Blues Licks

50 Jazz Blues Licks: #33 Sonny Clark

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 George 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!

Sonny Clark made only a handful of records as a leader before his untimely demise in 1963 at the age of 31. During his time in New York he was in regular rotation at Blue Note, and consequently recorded with the cream of the hard bop artists associated with the label, including saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Ike Quebec and Stanley Turrentine, trumpeters Lee Morgan, Art Farmer and Donald Byrd, and guitarist Grant Green. Like Wynton Kelly, another Blue Note pianist popular with his peers for his accompaniment skills, Clark worked with vocalist Dinah Washington in the 1950s, in part as a way to get himself from California, where he was working with musicians like Buddy DeFranco and Howard Rumsey, back to East Coast, explaining to critic Leonard Feather in the late 1950s, “I wanted to see the east again…the fellows out on the west coast have a different sort of feeling, a different approach to jazz. They swing in their own way. But…the eastern musicians play with so much fire and passion.” Clark’s quintet records like “Dial S For Sonny,” Leapin’ and Lopin’” and “Cool Struttin’” certainly exemplify that “Eastern” aesthetic, epitomizing everything there is to dig about the classic late-50s/early 60s hard bop approach.

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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.

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50 Jazz Blues Licks

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March 26th 2012

50 Jazz Blues Licks: #31 Hank Jones

Hank Jones plays on two of my favorite jazz recordings, Wes Montgomery’s So Much Guitar and Cannonball Adderly’s Somethin’ Else. In fact, each of these albums includes a great minor blues, Wes’ “Somethin’ Like Bags,” and Cannonball’s “One For Daddy-0.” (Which raises, just tangentially, the question: just how do you get an awesome nickname like “Cannonball” in the first place?) Though Jones’ family seemingly did not hand out the sobriquets as freely as some others, it was clearly a hotbed of talent, as his younger siblings included trumpeter Thad Jones, as well as Elvin Jones – you know, the guy who played drums on all those Coltrane records (Jones himself appeared with Trane and Milt Jackson on the 1960 session Bags and Trane.) Jones began his career working with swing icons like Hot Lips Page and Lucky Thompson before discovering and delving into bebop as it was developing in the mid-1940s and ultimately recorded with both Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker as well as tenor giants Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster and several other greats. All this after working as a touring member of Norman Granz’ Jazz at the Philharmonic and serving as Ella Fitzgerald’s pianist from 1948 to 1953. Give a listen and you’ll see why so many people wanted him around.

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50 Jazz Blues Licks

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March 12th 2012

50 Jazz Blues Licks: #30 Tommy Flanagan

Jazz musicians have a whole different way of thinking about playing blues in a minor key, and at first, if you don’t know what they’re thinking, it can sound, to quote songwriter Richard Julian, like “that blind man played piano like he knew another key.” But it’s basically a two-part matter to understand what’s going on. First, you need to know what additional chords they’re swapping in or substituting for the basic I, IV and V you’re used to, and why that works harmonically. Then, you can look at what they’re doing melodically to make their solos *reflect* those more elaborate chord progressions. And really, if you get what’s been going on so far in terms of the occasional ii-V-I logic, some of the altered tones we’ve swapped in, and the idea behind the basic chromatic moves we’ve looked at, you’ll be able to navigate these minor moves as well. The best part is, it often sounds good to *imply* these more jazz-inflected chord changes even when the band isn’t, which means you can be grooving like Albert on “Born Under A Bad Sign” and make heads turn when you let just a little chromatic, altered or secondary dominant action sneak into your solo. Sweet.

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Eclectic Blues Licks

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March 6th 2012

Eclectic Blues Licks: #3 Happy Ending

Eclectic Blues Licks is a preview video lesson series for Jeff McErlain‘s upcoming course, 50 Eclectic Blues Licks You MUST Know. Check in every week for a new eclectic blues lick video lesson, and be on the lookout for the full course with tab, jam tracks and more in the near future. Also check out Jeff’s other course, 50 Blues Licks You MUST Know — it’s killer! Subscribe for updates!

Jeff Beck has always been a favorite of mine, OK, he is my favorite guitar player. Besides constantly improving he is the King of being subtle on the guitar. The control he has over the instrument is a constant source of inspiration to me and something I strive for all the time. If you watch him play you see that most of the tones he get are from the guitar itself just using his hands, guitar controls, and of course the vibrato bar. If you are not familiar with Beck’s large body of work I suggest you RUN out and but some, or hit the download button. Some of my favorite tracks are “Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers” and his take on Mingus’s “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”, and “Where Were You”. These tunes are classic examples of what can be done on the guitar with dynamics. Some of my favorite playing by Beck can be heard on Roger Water’s 1992 “Amused To Death” recording, particularly the tunes “Ballad of Bill Hubbard” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VQq0wC_72Y) and “Three Wishes” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S-XqryBPUg). Hopefully that will get you started on one of the best guitar players out there with some not so well know gems as well.

In this lick, I am trying to use some of those techniques I have picked up from Beck. Some cool bar stuff, fingers instead of the pick, some cool legato stuff. All these techniques together really add to how much inflection you can add to a line, to me this is what it is all about. The emotional musical connection that you can make with the guitar is often helped along by just someone pointing it out, like Jeff Beck did for me.

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50 Low-Down Rhythm Licks

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January 30th 2012

50 Low-Down Rhythm Licks: #3 Soul Man

by Adam Levy

This guitar lesson is a preview of what’s to come in Adam Levy‘s 50 Low-Down Rhythm Licks. Stay tuned for more to come and an announcement of the full course soon. Be sure to subscribe to stay tuned!

Rolling Stone magazine rated Steve Cropper as #36 on their list of 100 Greatest Guitarists. For my own personal list of all-time guitar greats, I’d rate Cropper as #2 or #3. The first time I heard him was probably on Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay” or Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man” (later covered by the Blues Brothers, with Cropper reprising his role). His Telecaster tones on these classic 1960s soul records were always a little gritty and very much to the point—with no effects other than the occasional thrum of amp tremolo. Everything Cropper plays grooves from the first note to the last, and he never ever gets in the way of the singer.

The rhythm lick in this lesson comes from the verse sections of Sam & Dave’s 1967 hit, “Soul Man.” It’s essentially a one-chord vamp on G major. Instead of playing a full six-note barre chord, Cropper played a stream-lined four-note version, ducking the guitar out of the way of the song’s busy bass line. He answers each short vocal line with a higher G shape (comprising only three notes this time), then uses an A minor triad as a quick passing chord on his way back to the original G shape. Ingenious, and hooky as heck.

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A longtime friend of the ‘Fire, Adam Levy has been unlocking the guitar for students of all levels and varied interests for decades. His teaching experience comprises several years with the National Guitar Workshop, the Blue Bear School in San Francisco, and private lessons for New School in New York City. He is also a talented artist and songwriter, having worked with Norah Jones, Amos Lee, and Tracy Chapman. Be sure to check out Adam’s official website, his insightful blog, and his latest album, The Heart Collector.