minimal jazz skills?

[Turbo Gerbil]

ok, so, my first goal with Jazz is basically to be able to sit in on some open jazz jam and not make a complete fool of myself. Realizing that I have a long ways to go, what would you jazz cats say is the minimal set of skills needed to be able do to that? Comping, soloing, song knowledge, chart reading, etc?

[lhallam]

My jazz skills are minimal at best and certainly rusty however I was in a jazz house band many moons ago before going back to rock. How did I transition from rock to jazz? Aebersold!

http://www.jazzbooks.com/

If you can play along to your satisfaction then you're ready.

[Turbo Gerbil]

Originally posted by lhallam
My jazz skills are minimal at best and certainly rusty however I was in a jazz house band many moons ago before going back to rock. How did I transition from rock to jazz? Aebersold!

http://www.jazzbooks.com/

If you can play along to your satisfaction then you're ready.

Yup, I've been stocking up on Aebersold books. Great stuff. I found out how bad I suck just by trying to play along to "Maiden Voyage".

[Joe]

The venue will dictate the terms. An open mic night on Tuesday w/ a host will be much more forgiving than a Friday night w/o a host.

Many places have a guy that hosts open mics. His goal is to make everyone feel comfortable regardless of ability. If you screw up, he will keep playing and keep the mistakes to a minimum. I suggest this format for someone starting out. When you have 30 of these under your belt and you know about 25 tunes cold, then you can venture out from under a guided wing.

[lhallam]

Originally posted by Turbo Gerbil
Yup, I've been stocking up on Aebersold books. Great stuff. I found out how bad I suck just by trying to play along to "Maiden Voyage".

Love "Maiden Voyage".

My biggest complaint about Aebersold is many are just too damn fast. Yeah I could stumble through "Confirmation" but I have my doubts as to how much intense learning I was doing. More like learning how to fake it. Now the site sells h/w to slow it down.

[dkaplowitz]

Originally Posted by lhallam

Now the site sells h/w to slow it down.

There's some good, cheap software slowdowners that help with this too. I agree, some of the tempos are a little too fast when you're just trying to learn the song and work out some ideas.

[gennation]

I have a tutorial just for you...(you'll need Powertabs, but you can download it from my site)...

http://lessons.mikedodge.com/lessons/Jazz1/Jazz1TOC.htm

All of it is done as a song/solo. The changes are basically Take the A Train.

It covers chording, single-notes concepts using...diatonic arps, subs, whole-tone, H-W tone, and MUCH more.

Check it out, its call Common Sounds Found in Jazz.

There's a ton of info there. Move on to the PT files before you delve into the concept discussions, they can be a bit overwelming.

[ivers]

Originally Posted by Turbo Gerbil

ok, so, my first goal with Jazz is basically to be able to sit in on some open jazz jam and not make a complete fool of myself. Realizing that I have a long ways to go, what would you jazz cats say is the minimal set of skills needed to be able do to that? Comping, soloing, song knowledge, chart reading, etc?

Some very good suggestions here, but a very important thing IMO, while not a 'skill' per se, is to have a clear idea as to where your ear wanna go in a 'jazz' context, and to achieve that I believe listening to a lot of jazz is where it's at. Many skip that part when they wanna 'learn' jazz, strangely enough.

[what?]

Originally Posted by ivers

Some very good suggestions here, but a very important thing IMO, while not a 'skill' per se, is to have a clear idea as to where your ear wanna go in a 'jazz' context, and to achieve that I believe listening to a lot of jazz is where it's at. Many skip that part when they wanna 'learn' jazz, strangely enough.

cannot agree more...I never learn any theory whatsoever. I've been listening for jazz for years eventhough I cant play it, and then I was introduced to fusion like jing chi robben ford, scott henderson that have more blues type of phrasing. I've been recently jamming some original fusion stuff with my friends and I got to play fusion-like improv. :P when I'm in the zone, it just come straight to me. But still if I was given a 14 chords progession I'd just STFU..

Like when I figured that I can do scat with my guitar and voice in the same time. I didnt know that I could do that until I tried it, it came naturally.

[KRosser]

Know a couple of tunes well enough to play and not get lost. I second the Aebersold suggestion - they're very good for that.

[Lucidology]

One of the basis of Jazz improvisation is about learning to hear how the scales work over the chords...

You have to familiarize your ears with how chromatic chord changes sound and what scales work well with these changes. This takes a while and a real commitment ...

Then you learn to impose these over static harmony ... in other words, playing changes even when they're not there...(as the best fusion players do...)

I know a truly great rock guitarist who was once asked why he didn't play any jazz... ??

He quickly replied; "Because I don't want to work that hard!"