Jazz Trumpet Licks

This is a pretty easy diminished lick to learn. I didn’t get this diminished pattern from Dizzy Gillespie, but I sure hear Dizzy play it a lot in his recordings. It is kind of a good lick to use during a pause or hold for a cadenza at the end of a tune.

Here is a sound sample played on trumpet:

How to memorize this diminished pattern in 12 keys:

Since this lick is a diminished pattern, you only need to learn it in three keys depending on which note you start on. The way I remember the pattern above is you’ll start a half step below the first note that will start the minor stacked thirds (this will be C, thinking in C diminished). After that you go up a 4th. Then you repeat the process going up in minor thirds as far as you would like to.

The second part of the pattern changes to a different diminished key. You don’t have to change keys if you don’t want to, but the example above goes up a whole step to D diminished. The pattern just goes down in minor thirds with a half step up between each of them. You can continue the pattern as far down as you would like to.