Quote:

My suspicions about licks comes from hearing too many students string together so many regurgitated phrases out of context in the wrong places, and with no real attempt to personalize them or integrate them into an organic statement of their own.



This is the best way of phrasing this I've read lately. I hear that all the time and it drives me crazy. Sax players seem to be the biggest offenders. I'm speaking from the pov of doing live gigs. On the one hand it's good to have someone with the chops to play Tunisia for example but I don't want to keep hearing the same 2/5 phrases that are right out of Charlie Parkers book over and over and over and over....
Sometimes I want to reach over my keyboard and slap someone upside the head and say STOP THAT. Play something from your heart even if it's a bit choppy and not as fluid as those exercises you keep playing. I want to hear something I can interact with. Open it up, play more rhythmically, put some space in there, come up with some kind of melody lick or something, ANYTHING, please.

I know what the problem is for horn players and it's big bands. Big band players are like classical cats, they're totally used to reading the ink and nothing else. They're killer sight readers but crappy soloists.

I'm the opposite, a poor to half decent reader but a good soloist because of years working in small groups and playing a lot of left hand bass. That's puts me in control of the band in a lot of cases. If I want to take it somewhere that's not on the chart, what are they gonna do? Follow me of course. I have a favorite guitarist I get to work with sometimes. He likes to do that too and when he does we all have some fun.

Anyway Peter to your original question, yes I have worked on some licks I may have heard but I've never been good at trying to fit a lick from one tune into another tune. I have never been one to play stuff exactly like any record except for an exact intro or hook or something like that. Otherwise I've always played tunes my way. For me I may practice something just to get it under my fingers but on the gig I may start that lick and realize I don't like it and morph into something else. Experienced players know what I mean here, this happens in a split second and it's based on what I'm hearing from the rest of the band. I may think I want to do something but at that exact moment the bass player does something very cool, I pick up on it and change what I was going to do and this goes on all the time. What I may be playing for a comp can influence someone else's solo too.

This is what interactive performing is all about and having a group of people who may have good chops but are just playing fast jazz exercises they learned in school is a total drag.

Bob

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