Gypsy Jazz Phrasing Question

Harry-Dippo

I've been avidly playing and listening to Gypsy Jazz for quite a while now and I've got many of the scales and arpeggios nailed but my solo's still lack that fluidity and phrasing that is typical of the genre. I often go online and learn a series of Gypsy style licks and they sound great but when trying to link this with my own scales/arpeggios it suddenly looses that Gypsy feel and often I end of reeling them off like an excercise.

Is there any advice for creating a fluid solo ? is it down to practice? Playing arpeggios of the chords themselves?

Thanks
Harry

BluesBop Harry

Are you using the rest stroke (AKA Gypsy picking) technique?
That makes up for a lot of the phrasing and tone of this style...

Harry-Dippo

Thanks for the reply

Yeah it took a long time to get it but for a few weeks now I feel I've got the hang of gypsy picking.

I find its the linking of scales and riffs difficult. I've been playing for 6 years and have played jazz, funk and blues prodominantly and I think I'm still in that improvising mindset. I've always found playing over a more complex jazz chord progression to be difficult, would it be a good idea to study this further? :-

Is gypsy jazz improvisation more similar to Bebop in terms of soloing over the chords themselves or is it a case of transcribing other musicians for ideas and practice in general?

Thanks for helping me out, I just want to know how to focus my practice etc for better Gypsy playing

Jazzaferri

If you want to get a good grounding in gypsy style pick out a dozen or so of Django's best and start learning them. Blues Clair has lots of transcriptions around and check out Dennis Chang's site.

One thing to practice is to be able to arpegiate each chord in the changes to any of the common tunes.

Harry-Dippo

Thanks
Okay I think I'll set learning some more Django tunes as my mission and then working on the chord changes after Going to get learning right away!