[notj] Tom Dempsey's 50 Soul-Jazz Guitar Licks You Must Know (2013)

Soul Jazz grooves are wide open and great fun to play over because the rhythmic and harmonic framework is relatively simple thereby providing a highly improvisational landscape to work with. However, in the words of Albert Collins, “Simple music is hard to play,” and that’s why this handpicked collection of licks will serve you very well by stoking your vocabulary with ample ideas, motifs and other tricks of the Soul Jazz trade.

Good news! You already have the toolset at your fingertips if you’re relatively familiar with double-stops, pentatonic scales, bends, octaves, repetition, the mixolydian mode and chromatics. So, not a lot of new rocket science to digest. It’s more about the phrasing, rhythmic feel and improvisational approaches that you’ll be focusing on.

More good news! Tom dug deep into the Soul Jazz monster guitarist roster for inspiration; Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Pat Martino, Melvin Sparks, John Scofield, Peter Bernstein, Eric Kasnow, Mark Whitfield, and Norman Brown are all paid homage to.

All of the licks are first presented over a rhythm track for context , which is then followed by a detailed breakdown of the line along with the techniques being employed to perform it. Everything is tabbed and notated, plus you'll also get all of the rhythm tracks to practice the lines with on your own.

Add these 50 Soul Jazz licks to your playlist today!