7 Masterful Lines from Jazz Legends
- Jazz Lesson Videos
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
There’s no better way to learn than by looking at the sounds of artists you admire. Today we’re going to look at seven masterful lines from jazz legends and dig into why these are some of the greatest solos of all time.
You can find all the phrases that we go over today in our brand new resource that we just launched here at Jazz Lesson Videos, entitled 80 Lines from Jazz Masters. In it, you'll find 80 diverse and effective pieces of jazz vocabulary, along with phrases from 10 jazz legends. All the lines are written in all 12 keys for you to help you further internalize the language and absorb it into your vocabulary. If you want to see how Nathan plays through these lines, be sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, 7 Masterful Lines from Jazz Legends.
Now let’s get playing!
Contents
Charlie Parker - My Heart Tells Me
First up we’re going to look at a solo from Charlie Parker on “My Heart Tells Me.”
This line totally works over any ordinary ii-V-I, and these chords found on beat three here can just be an implied substitution. So what's going on here? We have a three-note pickup, first starting on the 5, and then these next several notes. Here we start on the root of our chord, Dm7, and diatonically approach D minor’s 3 on the downbeat. Then we have this sort of stair-stepping shape, going up and then skipping down and going up and then skipping down again until we get to the root. And these seven notes here we can see as one unit, so we can classify this as a Dm melodic cell.
Now we take this cell and do the exact same thing up a half step on Ebm, which fits perfectly in this Ab7, which is a tritone sub that leads into this G7 next. Now we do the cell again in Am. This gives us notes diatonic to G7. And now this is really slick. Rather than going up a half step again, this time we go down a half step and do this melodic cell in the key of Abm. These notes fit perfectly in this Db7, which is the tritone sub that leads into the Cmaj7. And how he leads into this Cmaj7, he plays a chromatic approach tone into the 5, and ends it off with a nice melodic shape, featuring a 3, a 6 and then a third into the 5.
Tommy Flanagan - All the Things You Are
Let’s check out our next phrase, which comes from the great pianist Tommy Flanagan. Now you’d be forgiven if you have a mixed opinion on Tommy—he supposedly flopped his solo on “Giant Steps,” but since he was sight reading, that’s sort of an unfair judgment. But if you listen to any of his other material, you’ll see some of the most crystal clear, beautiful bebop lines that you’ve ever heard. Let's look at one of his lines that's featured in the 80 Lines from Jazz Masters resource on “All the Things You Are.”
Let's break down what's going on here. The first measure and a half features a nice melodic line that embellishes all the notes of the Fm7 arpeggio by using a descending stair-step melodic motion. And then out of nowhere, for some contrast, we jump up an octave, and then he plays a three note enclosure that targets the b7 of the Eb7 chord. And now using triplets and sort of pedaling on this F here, we approach the 5 of this chord, and then approach the 3 of this chord. And once we land on this 3, we switch to a different melodic motion of ascending scalar triplets, first from this 3, and then from the 1, and then Tommy lands on this 3 and just plays a permutation of the Ab triad—3, 5, 1. After we make it to the root, we simply just walk up the scale until we get to the 3. It's a really beautiful line.
John Coltrane - My Shining Hour
Now let's look at some language from John Coltrane, arguably the most influential tenor sax player of all time. This phrase can be found in the John Coltrane chapter of the resource.
So what's going on here? This one comes from his solo over My Shining Hour, over the C6 chord. We play a major 7th and then a 1, 2, 3, 5 cell. Then we have a chromatic approach tone into the b7 of a Dm7 chord, and then descend down this arpeggio. Once we make it to the root of this Dm7 arpeggio, we go right back up it, and then we voice lead into the 7 of Cmaj7, which is B, and then from here we have this beautiful melodic rhythm featuring our quarter note and then a set of triplets. It's just decorating going down diatonic thirds. First you see this B, and then we go down a diatonic third into G and play this triplet embellishment that really decorates this G. Then we go down a third again, do the same thing, go down a third again, do the same thing, etc. until we finally land on G. And this is a line that you can do really over any chord progression that is diatonic and based in major.
Charlie Christian - Seven Come Eleven
Now for some contrast, let's go ahead and get into some Charlie Christian, a pioneer of the electric guitar in swing jazz. He's got some of the best blues lines ever. Here's one of his phrases found in the Charlie Christian chapter of the resource.
Over the Db7, he starts on its 5, and then he goes up to the b7. Then from here, to all the way two measures later, on the downbeat of the Ab7, he descends down the Db mixolydian scale, but takes away the root. This results in a really nice bluesy melody. Then, when we land on the 5 of our Ab7 chord, we go up to the root and play a chromatic approach into the major 3 of this chord, and then ascend the first inversion of the Ab6 arpeggio. It's simple yet so melodic, which is often the most effective way to play.
Clifford Brown - Sandu
Now we're going to study some language from the great Clifford Brown. He was undoubtedly one of the most technically brilliant jazz trumpeters of all time. Here's a phrase that can be found in the Clifford Brown chapter of the 80 lines from Jazz Masters resource.
So what's going on here? This takes place over the last four bars of a blues. Over this ii chord, we play a four-note enclosure around the F, and then we play another four-note enclosure around the D, then end it off with the Bb. So Clifford is playing this as if it's a Bb7 chord, which is a pretty common technique—to ignore the ii and just address the V. Then when we get to the actual V chord, this Bb7 here, we switch to the sound of tonic, which in this case is Eb, and we switch to this sound of Eb blues. So the entirety of these triplet figures, infused with a few eighth notes and quarter notes, are all notes of the Eb blues scale. Clifford plays it in such a beautiful, melodic way.
Barry Harris - Donna Lee
The sixth phrase we’re going to share with you today comes from the legendary pianist and music educator Barry Harris. There are few musicians that play bebop as cleanly and clearly to the level of Barry Harris. So here's a phrase that can be found in the Barry Harris chapter of the resource.
Over a Bb7#11 chord, which is the Bb Lydian Dominant, we ascend an Fm6/9 arpeggio, and then we chromatically walk our way down to the major 7 of this Fm sound, which is also the #11 of this Bb7#11 chord. And from this E, we go down the FmM7 arpeggio. After this, we go back up to that G and play this exact same figure again. And then we jump up an octave to the F of the Gm7b5 chord. Now really what Barry Harris is probably doing here is instead, thinking of an Eb7 chord. Gm7b5 is an upper structure naturally found within an Eb7 chord. This is evident because he's absolutely following all of the rules of a descending dominant bebop scale. In the key of Eb, he starts on the 9 of this Eb7, adds a passing tone between this 9 and the root, which is an Eb in this case, and then a passing tone between the root and the b7. Then he just walks down the Eb dominant scale. This allows him to voicelead onto the 5 of the C7b9 chord.
From here, this is very established jazz vocabulary. We're gonna walk down to the 3 of this dominant chord, and then go up a fully diminished arpeggio until we get to the b9. Then we dip back down into the b7, and with a chromatic passing tone, we voice lead into the 5 of our Fm6 chord. From here, Barry Harris is just switching from a tonic to V sound. We descend down an Fm triad, and then we descend a C7. Then we switch again to an Fm triad, this time with a different permutation. And then we go down to an E, which again, implies a V7 sound, the C7, and we instead play it's 3, 4, 5, 3, which voiceleads us onto the root of the Fm sound. Again, what a brilliant line.
Cannonball Adderly - Dizzy’s Business
Last, but certainly not least for today, let's get into some Cannonball. Nathan loves his soulful, bluesy sound mixed with virtuosic and sophisticated lines. Here's a phrase found in the Cannonball chapter of 80 lines from Jazz Masters.
This one takes place over rhythm changes in the key of Ab. This first motif is pretty simple here, really. We're playing a fifth and then a chromatic approach tone into the third, and we do it with this fun rhythm. After a few rests, we do it again, and it leads us into the next phrase, the first four notes of these consecutive eighth notes.
Here is an ascending Ab6 arpeggio, starting from its 5, and then we go up a Gm7b5 sound, which is really the upper structure of an Eb7. So really this is implying the sound of V. So far we have our tonic sound, then our V sound, and right after this, we're going to go down to the sound of the tonic. Again, we're going down the sound of an Ab6, then the next four notes are going up the sound of an Eb7, this time with a b9 that we start on. Then we voicelead into the 3 of our I7 chord and then play diatonic thirds going down right before this quarter note. Here we have a backwards 1, 2, 3, 5, in Ebm, which ends up being the Ab7’s 9, b7, 6, and 5. Then we play a B natural, which is Db7’s b7. But really from here through, the rest of this phrase is tonic, which is Ab’s Blue scale. So the rest of this figure here is a beautiful use of the Ab blues scale, and it's fused with a surprising major 3 here, this C natural within this ii-V, which adds a very effective feeling of contrast.
Alright that’s all we have for today, but if you’d like to dive deeper on these lines and more, make sure to check out our resource, entitled 80 Lines from Jazz Masters, and if you want to see how Nathan plays through these solos, check out our accompanying YouTube video, 7 Masterful Lines from Jazz Legends.
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