How to Play a Jazz Solo With GREAT Rhythm

Do you struggle with syncopated rhythms? How about odd time signatures? Or changing meters? This is how you learn to do it...

When I moved to NYC in 2000, I was floored by the musicians I met who had impeccable time feels - not only could they swing, but they could also play over extremely complicated song forms that involved changing meters - and still sound relaxed, expressive and spontaneous. I wanted to be able to do that too.

So, I took my drumming background and applied it to vibes: by writing rhythmic etudes for myself. I would force myself to use certain rhythms while improvising - whether it's 4/4 or 15/16 doesn't matter. What matters is that you know what rhythms you are playing while your improvise. The stronger your sense of rhythmic phrasing, the stronger your melodic phrasing will be.

In this video I wrote several rhythmic etudes that I applied in a fairly simple harmonic way - but I hope that you will be able to take the idea and adapt it to whatever song, meter, or style you want.

Rhythms are just like melodies - they can be very memorable and carry the song. So it's important that we treat rhythms with the same importance that we do scales and chords - because quite frankly, without the right rhythm, all that other stuff is moot.

A short overview of the contents:

4/4 swing rhythms
4/4 swing rhythms, but more syncopated :)
5/4 swing rhythms - I ended up playing 'Take Five' the classic from Dave Brubeck

Then for fun, I wrote a 5 bar chord progression that went from 4/4 to 5/8 to 4/4 to 7/8 to 3/4..I soloed over it to show how I practice.

AND of course I transcribed everything - you can find it all at my website as usual ;)

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