Jazz Trumpet Licks

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.

Here is a pretty easy ii V7 I Jazz lick to learn. A trombone player I used to work with showed this lick to me.  This lick is basically a minor pattern that repeats itself going down a half step to land on a chord tone of the I chord.

Here is a sound sample played on trumpet:

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

Start off by learning the minor pattern by itself first by going down in half steps all the way through the 12 keys, then apply it to a ii V7 I chord progression. This is the minor pattern: 5 b7 5 3 2 1. In the above example, you start on the 5th of the ii chord, play the minor pattern, then play it again down a half step, then finally land on the tonic of the I chord.

This minor pattern is useful by itself as well. Mess around with the pattern to find out how it’ll fit into your Jazz improvisation.