Wes Montgomery ii V I Licks – Short Phrases

When studying jazz guitar, one of the toughest progressions to begin outlining in your solos is the short ii V I progression.

With three chords in two bars, this chord progression goes by quickly, providing a challenge for all levels of guitarists.

When learning how to play over these fast-moving chord changes, one of the best study approaches is to learn from the greatest names in the genre.

And, there’s no bigger name than Wes Montgomery.

In this lesson, you’ll learn six different Wes Montgomery ii V I licks over short changes, both major and minor, as well as a sample solo over the Miles Davis tune Solar.

By working on these lines, you’ll expand your vocabulary, as well as learn concepts that you can use to bring a Wes vibe into your own solos.

Wes Montgomery ii V I Licks – Short Minor

To begin your study of Wes’ short ii V I licks, you’ll learn three minor ii V I licks that you can add to your vocabulary.

Short minor ii V I changes tend to handcuff players more easily than their major key counterparts.

This is mostly because more scales are needed to outline these changes, as compared to just one scale for major key ii V I chords.

In this first example, you’ll see the b13 interval being used to outline the C7alt chord in the second half of the first bar.

Whenever you have a 7alt chord, it’s a good idea to include at least one altered interval in your lines, b9-#9-b5-#5(b13), in order to create the altered sound.

You don’t have to use all of those intervals, as you can see in this lick, and often times focusing on one will bring out the 7alt sound without becoming cluttered.

 

Listen & Play

 

This second minor ii V I lick uses a technique that is found in many of Wes’ lines, the descending interval pattern.

You can see this technique used in every note of the lick, with the exception of the first two notes in the line.

Some of these descending intervals are diatonic, they come from the key, and some are chromatic, they come from notes outside of the key.

The most important aspect when applying this style of line is to resolve any chromatic notes by the end of your line.

This’ll allow you to use chromatic notes to create tension, and ensure that you resolve that tension before moving on in your solo.

 

Listen & Play

 

In this final minor ii V I lick, you’ll notice two important aspects of Wes’ playing that you can export from this line into your own playing.

The first is the Gbdim triad used over the first half of bar one of the lick.

This triad implies an F7b9 chord, as Gbdim is the b9-3-5 of F7b9, the chord heard in the second half of the bar.

As well, over that F7alt chord, there’s a major 7^th interval acting as a passing tone from the root to the b7 of that chord.

This passing tone is often associated with the Bebop scale, used to solo over 7^th chords, but it can also be used to solo over 7alt chords.

Add in a diminished triad from the b9, or the major 7^th passing tone, over any 7^th chord will help bring a Wes vibe into your playing.

It’ll also introduce two essential jazz soloing concepts into your improvisations.

 

Listen & Play

Wes Montgomery ii V I Licks – Short Major

You’ll now move on to learning three short Wes major ii V I licks that you can memorize and add to your jazz guitar improvisations.

The first line uses chords tones in the first bar to outline each chord change.

There’s also a characteristic leap from the 3^rd to the root of the F7 chord, which you can hear in many of Wes’ solos.

Over the Bbmaj7 chord, there’s a blues note added between the 3^rd and 2^nd of the scale, the Db note which is the b3 over Bbmaj7.

Mixing blues notes into your arpeggio and scale lines will bring a Wes vibe into your lines, as it’s something Wes did constantly in his playing.

 

Listen & Play

 

This second line begins with ascending 3^rd intervals, something Wes was found of using in his solos.

From there, the line stays within the diatonic scale for each chord.

Notice the last two notes over Bbmaj7, where you’ll be using the 4^th, Eb, to resolve to the 3^rd, D.

This half-step movement is commonly used over maj7 chords to create a bit of tension, as the 4^th clashes with the 3^rd in the chord, before resolving down to the 3^rd.

 

Listen & Play

 

This final major ii V I line uses two blues notes over both the F7 and Bbmaj7 chords.

Over the F7 chord, you’ll use a b3 blues note, the G#(Ab) near the end of the bar.

In the second bar, you’re using the b5 blues note, E over Bbmaj7, as you create a bluesy sound in the first half of that bar.

By adding b3 and b5 notes over maj7 and 7^th chords in your lines, you can create that blues-inspired sound that permeates many of Wes’ solos.

 

Listen & Play

Wes Montgomery Short ii V I Licks Solo

Now that you’ve learned a few Wes Montgomery short ii V I licks, you can bring some of them together over a jazz standard.

In this sample solo, you’ll see both short major and minor ii V I licks from the previous examples used to build a chorus over Solar.

After you’ve worked out this written solo, put on the backing track and start to apply the licks from this lesson to your own solo.

You can also write out your own solo over this tune using the licks in this lesson to practice applying them before you take them to your improvisations.

Go slow when learning this solo, work it one phrase at a time, and memorize each phrase as you learn them.

This way, you’ll not only learn the solo, but you’ll internalize it, which will allow you to integrate these ideas much easier into your own jazz guitar solos.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

The post Wes Montgomery ii V I Licks – Short Phrases appeared first on The Jazz Guitar Blog.

from The Jazz Guitar Blog http://ift.tt/1TWrqEw