Licks – Page 13

This video is from 1983, and as far as I’m aware of was only available as a VHS tape with two cover variants. The format of the video appears to be a recorded guitar clinic in front of a studio audience.

I remember first watching this video around 1998 when I just started learning jazz guitar at college. Looking back, that was probably too early for to understand the depth of the material that John Scofield was teaching. Watching this now I appreciate what he was showing a lot more.

The video begins with John improvising over the chord changes of Stella By Starlight. Then he explains his thoughts on what improvisation is, in the context of what he does as a jazz musician. John demonstrates all the seven modes of the major scale and the different sounds that are available when you play in those modes diatonically.

After explaining all that, he goes through the seven modes of the melodic minor. It’s interesting to hear how John explains the various sounds (and which ones he explains in more depth and which one he talks only briefly – he didn’t use mixolydian b6 as much at that point in time). John then continues to demonstrate the symmetrical diminished scale and the whole tone scale.

After introducing all the various scales and modes, Scofield demonstrates how to connect and use these scales in context. He uses two main chord progressions to teach this:

Cmaj7 Ebmaj7 Dmaj7 Dbmaj7
Dmin7 G7 Cmaj7 (II-V-I in C major)

Then, he explains how he uses passing tones to essentially be able to play any note on any chord. He also improvises on Dmin7 G7 Cmaj7 to show how this sounds in context.

Next up, Scofield talks about pentatonic scales and how using different pentatonic scales opens up the different sounds.

John also answers some questions from the audience. He answers a question on picking technique – and continues to explain his legato technique. John Scofield also explains about how learning licks from different players. The final question he answered is about what gear he was using at that time. John emphasized that “it’s from your hands” so it’s important to “get good equipment and learning how to use that.”

In conclusion, this is a wonderful document of John Scofield’s approach to jazz guitar and how he taught at this time. I would definitely recommend this video for anyone who is interested to understand John’s approach by directly listening to his explanation.

Pros: Great video for fans of linear jazz improvisation.
Cons: No transcriptions of improvised examples that Scofield plays (which arguably are some of the more important material from this classic video).
TLDR: A valuable record of John Scofield’s thought process from this period, this video is great for jazz guitarists who want to learn from “early” John Scofield.

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