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.

This ii V7 I Jazz lick I heard Clifford Brown play is pretty easy to learn and implement into your Jazz solos. If you look towards the end of the Clifford Brown Jazz lick you’ll see an enclosure. If you don’t know what a Jazz enclosure is, it’s where you go up a half step then below a half step towards a chord tone. You’ll see that Clifford Brown did an enclosure on the 5th of the I chord.

Here is a sound sample on trumpet:

How to memorize this Jazz lick in 12 keys:

Notice that the lick starts on the I of the ii chord, does a pentatonic down to the 4th, then I continue to think in C minor going to the 2nd down to the harmonic raised 7th. Then the cool part of the lick hops from C to G to C to A, then down the scale with an enclosure at the end landing on the 5th of the I chord.

This is how I memorized the lick, it doesn’t mean this method is going to work for you. This lick sounds nice over a break before you begin your solo, an example would be the break in the tune Four.