Jazz Trumpet Licks

Here is another cool outside dominant pattern that a good Jazz trombonist was kind enough to show me. This Jazz lick is easy to learn and implement into your improvised solos.

Here is a sound sample played on trumpet:

How to memorize this dominant pattern in 12 keys:

You can see that this dominant pattern just repeats itself over and over again going up chromatically in half steps. Just start on the tonic of whatever dominant chord you are on. The pattern is (1 b7 1  b7 5 4) memorize that pattern in one key and you will basically have the pattern memorized in all the other keys.

You can use this pattern like it is written above, or you can keep going up chromatically as far as you would like. Experiment with this lick and find how it best fits into your improvising. You really could play this Jazz lick over any chord and it would sound good.

I don’t know the name of the tune because the video is in a foreign language as far as descriptions go. What I do know is that Arturo Sandoval and Dizzy Gillespie both sound great on this live Jazz trumpet video. Arturo Sandoval plays some really fast licks and a high note at the end of the first tune. Then Arturo starts playing piccolo trumpet out of all things, Arturo sounds good though, then he finally finished on yet another trumpet high note.

Here is a cool sounding pentatonic pattern I got from a really good trombone player I used to work with. This pentatonic lick starts off with a minor pentatonic scale, then you go down a Major third, outside the key and do another minor pentatonic scale. You can play whatever pattern or notes that you want to, the example is only to give you an idea of what you can do. This lick fits really well over modal tunes like So What.

Here is a sound sample played on trumpet:

How to learn this pentatonic lick in 12 keys:

You aren’t really learning a set pattern with this lick. You want to think in minor pentatonic, then go down a Major third and play in that minor pentatonic. In the above example you start off in E minor pentatonic, then you go down a Major 3rd to C minor pentatonic, finally, you go back to E minor pentatonic.

The best way I found to learn this lick is to just mess around with it in all the keys. Some keys will be stronger than others, but that’s OK. Once you feel comfortable enough, start using the Jazz lick in your solos either live or with Aebersolds and Band in a Box.