Jazz Trumpet Licks

This is an awesome Jazz trumpet solo of Tom Harrell with Jacky Terrasson playing piano on their Moon & Sand album. Tom Harrell takes a ride on Tune Up which is a pretty fast tune, but he nails the solo to the wall. Tune up is basically 3 different ii V7 I chords played over and over again. This means you can get a lot of good ii V7 I licks listening to Tom Harrell on this solo so you need to own it on CD.

This Jazz trumpet solo gets really addicting the more you listen to it. Feel free to leave any comments on this post if you get any good licks from Tom Harrell’s trumpet solo.

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A tenor sax player friend of mine back in Japan showed me this bebop scale exercise. This is not a lick, it is simply an exercise or calisthenic that will help develop your overall bebop playing. It’s very important to learn this exercise in 12 keys to really develop your technique.

Here is a sample of the bebop exercise played on trumpet:

How to memorize the bebop exercise in 12 keys:

Notice that the exercise just starts on the tonic of whatever bebop scale you are working on. It then just goes up the the chord tones to the 11th and then down the bebop scale landing on the 3rd, 5th, b7th and tonic chord tones. After you reach the octave, the exercise just repeats itself and goes backwards landing on the , b7th, 5th, 3rd and ending on the tonic.

This is the easiest way to memorize the exercise in 12 keys. Just know that you will never go outside the bebop scale you are currently working on.

Here is a whole tone lick I heard Dexter Gordon play. I can’t remember what album it was off of though.

Here is a sample played on trumpet:

How to learn the lick in 12 keys:

Know that this lick is a whole tone pattern and you are just going down the whole tone scale. Notice that the first note of every pair of four eighth notes is a whole step apart. Also notice that each eighth note is a minor 3rd apart. That is the easiest way to learn this lick in 12 keys. So this lick uses minor 3rds going down in whole steps.