I'm sure as everybody knows, I've been working on the Tom Harrell solo I posted here. I was blown away by it's simplicity and beauty. I think everything comes out of simplicity. It is possible to learn this later on as I did and lots of students do!

We're all blown away by Burton playing Chega. And we're blown away by how simple he makes it. That's one type of simplicity. It's complicated but Burton makes it sound simple.

Here's a lesson plan for Invitation.

A great way to study this tune in pieces. Each lesson in the beginning will focus on one part of the tune. Later we put it all together and focus on the tune as a whole and work on improvising on it.

What's great about Invitation to study is the A section is sort of a modal section and the B section are changes. The same changes in lots of other tunes like, Cherokee, Laura, and others that mention in the lessons.

When you practice part 2 of the Invitation lesson, you're also working on:

Invitation, Cherokee, Laura, Speak Low (sort of), Minority.... can you think of any others?

Hey Guys,

It's been a while since I have visited the site and I believe there are so many new members... Man this site is amazing and growing even more and more. (btw Tony congrats and the one year+ anniversary).

See if you can guess the soloist, band, year, tune, etc.

This bootleg recording ended up in my mailbox and knocked me out!

This is a great lick. It really gives some insight about weaving and vocabulary.

Check out the bebop major scale coming down. What a natural evolution for the scale huh? It just smooths out the major scale!

I love how he gets to the 4 chord at the end.

I laugh when I play this lick.

I'm definitely on the side of learning licks to study and show you ways through changes. I'm definitely of the belief that it does NOT make you a cut and paste player unless you already were, and then that's another story.

Tifoo sent me this video. this guy sounds good!

Its been about 8 months since this recording. I think I'm past the mistakes on it now to a point where I am willing to post it.
This was recorded at my percussion ensemble concert last year. We only were able to rehearse about 3 times which is my excuse for messing up blatantly.

An old poster from a Gary Burton Concert. John Keene told me it's on sale for about $400 bucks, if anyone is interested.

The more I do this the more I realize the power of a site like this. The more you talk about things, the more you post, the more you comment, I think, the more you learn.

When you record something with the intent of posting on this site you will work hard on the piece and it will sound your best by the time you get it up here. That's important. We all have to do things to sound our best.