Customer Reviews

Jazz Guitar Lines (Contemporary Guitar Series)

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This book has some cool minor and diminished type licks in the styles of Pat Martino,Wes Montgomery and others that work really well over minor blues.There are two solos that put the lines to use over some common jazz chord progrssions.Most guitarist will get something out of this book/cd package.Highly recommended!

This book deals with 40 lines used for only fast bop style. No swinging this stuff... keep it straight and fast... Makes a great chop builder too. It gives great examples of how to use them but it fails to rework those same lines over and over again to illustrate truthfully what it really means by improvising.

Mr. Lucky does reveal the secret to improvising which is to first learn to speak the language before creating your own style. In other words, first learn jazz lines at least 20 of them but start of with at least 3 at a time... Then, learn to apply them over jazz progressions, any and all of them...basically, the ii V I and the I VI ii V... Next, learn to play them differently each time. ... That is to say, taking licks and working with them, reshaping them to create a music theme or new statement. At best, take one line and use it over the entire progressions.. this will really make you think creatively instead of theoretically. Unfortunately, Mr. Lucky does not show you how to go about doing that.. He just use the same lines, over different progressions but not really changing them up, except for playing them an octave higher or lower... So unless you are at that point where you are just looking for more ideas to work with, then this book isn't for you. Includes TAB

This book is a collection of lines that are intended to be used for improvisation. The author of the book believes that it is more important to learn musical phrases that can be used instantly in improvisation rather than trying to make music from scales. This book was very influential for me in that it got me thinking in a different way about improvisation on the guitar. After I purchased this book I was more concerned about learning musical ideas than learning scales.

This book has a lot of cool lines that can be used in a variety of ways. The lines often tend to have a sort of harmonic minor kind of feel, though I haven't tried to analyze them too much. He demonstrates and discusses how to use the lines, but he could have had more demonstrations and discussed just a little more the why's. I think he is trying to get you to experiment using these lines and find for yourself how to use them.

Some of these lines are played very fast so you may want to use a device or software to slow the CD down so that you can play along with them.

Overall not a perfect book, but it is one my favorites and definitely worth the cost.