Jazz Trumpet Licks

Here is a fairly simple exercise that will help you develop and incorporate the use of diminished arpeggios into your Jazz trumpet solos. Diminished arpeggios, whether you use them in full or partially, are a great pattern to have under your belt as they kind of go hand in hand with the bebop scale in keeping your Jazz lines going.

Here is a sound sample of the diminished exercise on trumpet:

How to work this diminished exercise in 12 keys:

I find it best to think in stacked minor 3rds. It really doesn’t matter what note you start on. It’s best to get in the full comfortable range of your horn. All you are doing is going down 4, half step down, up 4, half step down, down 4, etc…

To get every key both up and down you’ll just want to go up or down a half step from where you started in the first exercise and do the same thing over. Now you are alternating the diminished arpeggio both up and down.

Make sure to use a metronome on this exercise, I apologize for not doing so myself. Once you got the pattern down, try to start incorporating it into your Jazz playing. A good start is on the V7 to I chord. Start on the 3rd of the V7 chord and land on the 5th of the I chord. You’ll get the b9 involved and it sounds really hip.

If you haven’t seen this Jazz video of James Morrison on You Tube yet, you’re in for a real treat. There are a whole bunch of cool things James Morrison (an Australian trumpet player/trombone player) shows off on. Switching back and forth between trombone and trumpet, multiphonics at the beginning on trombone, using a trombone trigger to play a bunch of Jazz licks on trombone, and of course a lot of high notes. He goes up to a high G, but mainly does it one handed while making it look very easy. The blues changes are of the tune, “Things Ain’t What They Used to be”.

I would like to show you an easy way to use the cry me a river Jazz lick over a ii V7 I chord progression. There are many ways to incorporate the cry me a river lick into your Jazz solos, but this is one of the first ways I learned how to do so and I’ve been using this technique ever since.

Here is a sound sample on F blues progression with trumpet:

How to memorize the cry me a river lick in 12 keys:

For this ii V7 I Jazz lick, the only important chords are the V7 going to the I chord. All you have to know is you are starting on the flat third of whatever chord the V7 chord is. In the above example, F natural is the b3 of the D7 chord. You can play whatever your heart desires on the ii chord. After you play the cry me a river Jazz lick, your goal is to land on either the 3rd or 5th chord tone of the tonic chord. You’ll notice in the above example, I used an enclosure going to the 5th of the I chord, this is optional, but enclosures always sound great.

As far as memorizing the cry me a river lick, for me this Jazz lick was memorized easiest by feel. This is because it usually goes by pretty fast and it’s a little bit easier to memorize in some keys better than others.

I wanted to share this smokin Jazz trumpet solo of Tom Harrell with the Phil Woods Quintet. When I was watching this Jazz video I noticed how Tom Harrell rests his fingers over his trumpet valves. I’m wondering if this helps his technique overall on the trumpet. According to how he sounds in the Jazz clip I’m going to have to say that it helps him quite a bit.

This great recording of Tom Harrell took place in Hamburg of 1988. I have one problem though, I’m not sure what the name of the tune is. If anyone could help me out on this it would be greatly appreciated.

Here is an easy ii V7 I Jazz lick to learn in 12 keys. I was messing around with some Aebersolds a few days ago and started playing it. I knew I heard the lick before somewhere, it sounded really old school to me, yet still hip enough to play. It really sounds cool if you land on the raised fourth instead of the third on the I chord. The reason I call the lick old school is because it sounds like something an old school cat would play.

Here is a sound sample and example over a blues progression played on trumpet:

How to memorize this ii V7 I Jazz lick in 12 keys:

Well, you’ll notice that the Jazz lick simply starts off on the tonic of the ii chord. I like to think in minor for pretty much the entire lick. In the above example, you just go down the D minor scale doing a little turn on the sixth and doing a chromatic to the b5. Then you’ll hit the third scale degree of the V7 chord. I think to the b7th, then down the minor arpeggio doing pretty much whatever you like finally ending on the 3rd of the I chord.

I since this lick isn’t very fast and if you think about the minor scale, this Jazz lick is probably easy enough to learn by ear and feel in 12 keys.