Jazz Trumpet Licks

Leroy Jones doesn’t start taking his trumpet solo until the 3:15 mark on the video. Craig Klein took a very energetic trombone solo as well but if you want to skip ahead, feel free to do so. Leroy Jones does some circular breathing on a G above the staff, pretty cool if you ask me. I guess I’m writing about Leroy Jones because I recently had the opportunity to see Leroy perform live at the New Orleans 2009 Satchmo Summer Festival. It was a great show. I didn’t know that Leroy Jones did a lot of singing.

I always liked Leroy Jones’ trumpet sound. He has a very unique trumpet sound that is very light and mellow and easy to pick out among other Jazz trumpet players out there.

Is it just me, or does Harry Connick Jr look really young in this video?

I know you’re going to laugh at how simple this fourth pattern is. Simply going up in half steps with a fourth in between doesn’t sound too difficult. The reason I posted this fourth pattern as a Jazz lick is because it really can come in handy over modal tunes and Dominant chords that last awhile and you want to take your Jazz solo outside a little bit.

Here is a sound sample played on trumpet:

How to learn this fourth pattern in 12 keys:

Since this Jazz lick goes up chromatically, you’ll really only have to learn it once. Just know that the pattern is up a fourth from the first note you start on, then up a half step from the first note you started on. The Jazz lick simply repeats this same pattern over and over again.

The cool thing you can do with this fourth pattern is mess around with it rhythm wise. Find and create different variations of this chromatic fourth pattern that you like best. Since this is music, there are no limits on what creative 4th pattern variations you can come up with.

I had the great opportunity to live in Japan for 5 years. While I was stationed in Japan I also had the opportunity to meet Eric Miyashiro in person. It’s a funny story really, I was at a music store near Tokyo and heard a trumpet player doing two octave lip slurs in the distance. I was curious to see who it was because the trumpet player was wailing up to double high Cs and beyond in his lip slurs.

I walked towards the trumpet high notes and to my utter amazement, Eric Miyashiro was in a separate room giving a Yamaha trumpet clinic to about 30 viewers. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. I stood outside as the clinic continued on. Eric Miyashiro continued to play some Maynard Ferguson type Jazz licks on different Yamaha trumpets. After each Maynard sound sample he spoke in Japanese about each trumpet.

After the clinic was finished, I seized the opportunity to introduce myself to Eric Miyashiro as he walked out of the room. I haphazardly told him I was a big fan. He asked me if I play. I told him I was in the Navy Band over in Yokosuka. He surprisingly got excited and happily stated that he loved performing with the Navy Band folks. He even mentioned a bunch of names of Navy cats that he used to work with.

That was my first experience meeting Eric Miyashiro. I got to see him perform several times while I was stationed in Japan. Great times!

I love this video of Eric Miyashiro performing Give it One. He has such a powerful trumpet sound.