Jazz Trumpet Licks

I can’t remember where I got this whole tone pattern from, but the Jazz lick sounds cool to play so I wanted to share it with you. The lick was a little tricky for me to get down on trumpet because of the fingering it requires. I hope the lick is a lot easier for you to learn than it was for me. If anything, you can use this whole tone pattern as a good trumpet fingering exercise.

Here is a sound sample on played on trumpet:

How to memorize this Jazz lick in 12 keys:

This Jazz lick is a whole tone lick so you’ll “technically” only need to learn it twice. When I think of executing this Jazz pattern, I think in a combination of going down the augmented triad from the note I start on. In the above example you’ll start on the 3rd of the C augmented triad. So you’re in second inversion because the 5th is the bottom note.

If you look at the example above, the first note of each measure is part of the augmented triad you are thinking in. If you’re not familiar or comfortable playing augmented triads, a good exercise is to just go up and down each augmented triad going up in whole steps, half steps, and alternating in between them until you really have a good feel for them.

So, as you can see the whole tone pattern simply repeats itself over and over again going down the augmented triad. The pattern you’re repeating is ( 3 1 2 3 Aug triad down). Thats it, or at least that is how I memorized the lick. You may find a more comfortable way. Whatever works for you!