This month the Brazilian jazz master, Berklee graduate and Master in Music at Hague Conservatoire shares six of his favourite jazz licks, with Jon Bishop as your guide.
In this feature we welcome jazz guitar master Marcio Philomena. Marcio is a highly-regarded jazz guitarist and has recorded some wonderful tracks.
In the video Marcio demonstrates all of the six licks with a backing and the same G7-C chord backing is used. The eighth notes in the licks are played with a swing feel and to keep things straigtforward we have used a 4/4 time signature to keep the notation and tab as simple to use as possible. So just play all the notes in the examples with a swing feel and you are good to go.
In his licks Marcio demonstrates the use of several tried and tested ways to introduce tension into a V-I (G7-C) cadence. The first concept is to use G Altered scale over the G7 chord. G Altered scale is the seventh mode of Ab Melodic Minor (Ab-Bb-Cb-Db-Eb-F-G) and using it over a resolving Dominant chord is a tried and tested idea for that jazz type sound. The G Augmented triad (G-B-D#) is hidden within the G Altered scale and improvisers often pick this out as a way to imply the Altered scale sound.
The second concept is to superimpose various chord changes over the G7. Superimposing different chords over the G7 provides a structured way to introduce tension and chromatic notes. Marcio uses the ‘Coltraine’ changes (Abmaj7-B7-Emaj7-G7) to great effect over the G7.
The third concept being demonstrated in the video is using the G Whole-Tone scale. As the name suggests, G Whole-Tone is made from all whole tones (G-A-B-C#-D#-F). It’s a symmetrical scale and lends itself to pattern playing. In the video Marcio explores both five and seven-note patterns.
The fourth concept worthy of consideration is playing a chord a semitone above the V chord. So in this case an Abmaj7 arpeggio can be played over the G7.
In the context of our G7 chord the Abmaj7 arpeggio introduces the root-b9-11-#5 intervals thus making it a good choice for creating tension. It is also possible to view this idea more simply as the semitone approach note method.
To finish off Marcio uses an Ab Diminished 7 arpeggio to create the tension. In the context of our G7 chord this provides the b9-3rd-b7-5th intervals making it another good choice for creating dissonance. It also lends itself to pattern playing as is it is built exclusively from Minor 3rd intervals. This means any Diminished 7 arpeggio patterns can be moved around the fretboard in three-fret intervals.
All of the licks in the video are played with the p
