Style and Improvisation.
Jazz has always intrigued me. My first experience playing jazz was with my brother Peter’s high school jazz band at Murphy in Atlanta. I think I was in 6th grade. I sat in and was amazed at the range of the charts, there was a high “A” in the second part!
The guys in the trombone section were very nice and welcomed me and helped me out. One of them had a motorcycle with three wheels, I hesitate to call it a tricycle, but I thought it was very cool.
The music struck me immediately. I have played and studied jazz ever since. Paul VanderGheynst was the first person to teach me about the Basie swing style and the fluidity of Thad and Mel’s band.
I studied jazz at Northern Colorado, an awesome jazz program, and played with some great players in bands in Denver. When I was at UNC in Greeley, I attended a Jamey Aebersold camp (with a generous scholarship arranged by Gene Aiken) and got to study with Slide Hampton and David Baker. That is where I started to develop as an improviser.
While I feel my skills are still limited (see Jerry Coker’s introduction to “The Creative Nudge”), I started to get some concepts that gave me some guidelines for playing chord changes.
I learned by “trial-and-error”. I studied music theory to see how the structure of music works. You have to play scales, arpeggios, and patterns until they are a natural part of your being. Once you develop your tools, “It just happens,” as Buddy Baker said.
1. Learn how to play the trombone (or whatever your instrument is).
2. Learn styles by listening to great jazz players and other great music (not just jazz).
3. Develop your tools: scales, arpeggios, patterns.
A handy list of great jazz trombonists with some biographies and discographies can be found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_jazz_trombonists.