Jazz Trumpet Licks

We all know Donna Lee is a fun yet fast jazz standard to improvise over. Ryan Kisor takes this trumpet challenge to the next level with plenty of triplets in low and high ranges. As always with Ryan Kisor, he likes to take patterns outside the box which means there are some nice licks to take advantage of in this trumpet transcription.

Donna Lee by Charlie Parker/Miles Davis – off the album ‘Donna Lee’ by Ryan Kisor

This is a nice Dexter Gordon tenor sax transcription over Blue Bossa by Kenny Dorham. Blue Bossa is a really fun jazz standard to improvise over. Minor changes going into a nice ii V7 I. There are a lot of ii V7 I licks to grab from this transcription that sound so natural. Dexter also uses a lot of pentatonic licks and keeps the solo moving smoothly.

Dexter’s solo is followed by nice piano and bass solos.

This tune has a rough intro, but that goes away real quick when Roy Hargrove starts improvising over these fast blues changes. Roy mixes his solo up with outside patters, trumpet tricks, and sweet riffs.

Roy’s trumpet solo is later followed by a nice piano solo by Jacky Terrasson. Then the Ray Trio band stars trading fours with the drummer (Alvin Queen) and Roy Hargrove.