How Do You Learn To Play Jazz?

How does one learn to play jazz improvisational music?

Learning to be a good jazz improviser requires several areas of knowledge and talent.

To begin with, one must understand music as a medium of communication of emotion.

As a child, I was exposed to my Grandmother and Mother who were both singers. We had a piano in our home. I was encouraged to play it. I believe this built an early appreciation of music and how people respond to it.

I took classical piano lessons as a very young child, but they didn’t really click with me. I was too young to understand the importance of theory and technique which was what that style of teaching had been all about. Needless to say I didn’t go very far with these early lessons.

Having the piano in the house was a huge advantage. My Mother had a bunch of old “fake books” lying around. Fake books were illegal compilations of popular songs listing only the basic melody and basic chords so musicians could use the book to “fake” a song on the bandstand. They were illegal because there was no copyright information. They were essentially black market items sold under the table or passed from musician to musician.

I had learned the treble clef and knew the notes on the piano so I was already able to play some of the songs. There was a chord chart in the front of the book with diagrams of the chords in root position. I started playing the melodies in the right hand and plunking down the chords in the left hand.

Shortly after that I became interested in the clarinet and saxophone. There was a music teacher in the area I began taking lessons from. He played the accordion and had a small band that consisted of all his students. All the students played in the band and he wrote out each part by hand according to the level of the student. He showed me more things about chords and improvising using the notes in each chord.

By the time I got to junior high school I began studying with a teacher who specialized in the woodwinds. I had also become an avid jazz fan and spent hours at the library reading about saxophone heroes like Charlie Parker, Lester Young, John Coltrane, and Sonny Rollins. I was listening to their music heavily and that kind of playing became the direction I wanted to pursue.

I listened to Charlie Parker records every night. I’d put a stack of them on the turntable (yes this was before CD’s) and turn out all the lights and just let them play one after the other.

When I got to high school several things happened. There was a small jazz band that mostly played stock high school jazz band arrangements. We would rehearse at one of the guy’s houses every week. I got to improvise in front of people for the first time playing with the high school jazz band. I also liked to play the piano in the auditorium during lunch or during free periods. There would never be anyone in there and it was dark. One day I was playing the substitute teacher from the Spanish department came in. We talked about music for a while and he invited me to come and jam with a band he played with – three older guys who go together once a week.

I started playing with those older guys every week and eventually did my first gig when I was 15. We’d just play tunes out of the Real Book (a fake book) and take long solos. It was a fun place to experiment in.

When I got to be 16 I started going to local jam sessions up in Hartford, CT. Imagine me a 16 year old boy in a smoky bar sitting in. I learned a lot from those times.

Around that time I met Jackie McLean who invited me to his home for lessons. I began studying with him and ultimately graduated from his jazz studies program at the Hartt School in 1988.

Jackie had me learn my major, minor, and diminished scales inside out. We played long tones to build up the sound. We learned tunes and dissected the solos of people like Charlie Parker. My assignments were always to take whatever he had shown me and learn it in every key and then call him for a new lesson. I always did and within two weeks or a month I was back for more.

Jackie told me a big part of his early training was transcribing Charlie Parker solos – not written transcribing, but learning to sing the solo and play it back from memory on your horn.

If you study any of the master jazz musicians you will find that transcribing played a huge part in their development.

Before you say this leads to cloning, or imitation I say check out Jackie McLean. He has the most distinct sound of any alto saxophonist.

Learning to play jazz is like learning a spoken language. Its exactly the same. It is a language. Charlie Parker learned to play listening to Lester Young. Art Tatum was a disciple of Fats Waller and Fats Waller was a disciple of James P. Johnson – that’s how it goes. The music is passed down in this tradition.

As I began to assimilate different players into my concept, I began to sound more and more like I knew what I was doing. I’m a firm believer in knowing where the music comes from and how it got here.