I'm probably going to sound like a salesman here, but here goes...There's two videos I think anybody wanting to learn to improvise in a jazz setting should get. They're both by Scott Henderson, and called Jazz Fusion Improvisation, and Melodic Phrasing. Jazz Fusion Improv deals with what scales, arpeggios, triads, etc. work over different chord types. He presents it very clearly with examples, and it's easy to apply after some practice.
Melodic Phrasing, however, deals completely with building a coherent solo. He talks about phrasing concepts like rhythm, repetition, contour, and other stuff along those lines and how to use them to create a good solo. Again, it's all clearly demonstrated. Definitely worth the money!
Aside from that, I agree that transcription is the way to go. However, I think that if you're looking to play fusion/jazz rock, then you should get some good jazz records and transcribe those. The foundation of fusion is jazz--it's basically jazz players who turned up the volume. Some good albums would be...
anything by Miles Davis in the 50's and early 60's...
Wayne Shorter--Speak No Evil...
John Coltrane--Giant Steps...
anything by Charlie Parker...
Wes Montgomery--Smokin' at the Half Note...
anything by Bill Evans (the pianist, not the sax player)
Herbie Hancock--Empyrean Isles
Pat Metheny--Bright Size Life and Trio > 99
These are just a few, of course...That's a lot of money to slap down on CD's, but try your best to amass a pretty good jazz collection. Do a lot of listening to records like these and then transcribe some solos! Also, try to find a RealBook, the ones out now are the New Real Book vol. I, II, and III. Learn as many of those standards as you can and try playing over the chord changes, using the tools you have--it gets easier the more you do it!
After a while of this you'll find yourself much more cabable to improvise on jazz and fusion tunes. You'll also likely find that a lot of the lines you transcribe off those records are just like the lines you hear by fusion players like Henderson and Gambale, the only difference is that they just turned on the distortion.
Hey Larry, good to see you too! Hope everything's going well. Shoot me a private message and I'll give you my email so we can talk there, at least until I get Paltalk set back up again.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum