Mickey Baker Soloing

[The Maestro]

I've been using the Mickey Baker book to build up my jazz chops and have picked up a lot of useful stuff from the chords/rhythm portion but am now moving on to the chapters on soloing.

 

Just wondering if others have found that they have been able to develop their jazz soloing through this book or is it mostly useful for rhythm playing?

 

The reason I ask is that the licks I've run across in the first few chapters (on soloing) seem pretty dull, not too hip or inspiring. And when I say hip, I'm not looking to sound modern especially, would be just as happy to sound like Django or Charlie Christian as Wes or Kenny Burrell.

 

I had a lot of success learning jazz soloing on sax with the Aebersold series but it doesn't seem to apply as well to guitar since you don't have the fingerings and there are so many different ways to finger every arpeggio, lick, and scale on the guitar.

 

The Mickey Baker books have the fingerings but I'm worried it may be too basic for soloing..has anyone had success with it?

 

By the way, this is my first post so . I've followed this forum for about a year and gotten tons of useful information from it. Finally decided to overcome my laziness and set up a user ID.

[Virgman]

I've been using the Mickey Baker book to build up my jazz chops and have picked up a lot of useful stuff from the chords/rhythm portion but am now moving on to the chapters on soloing. Just wondering if others have found that they have been able to develop their jazz soloing through this book or is it mostly useful for rhythm playing? The reason I ask is that the licks I've run across in the first few chapters (on soloing) seem pretty dull, not too hip or inspiring. And when I say hip, I'm not looking to sound modern especially, would be just as happy to sound like Django or Charlie Christian as Wes or Kenny Burrell. I had a lot of success learning jazz soloing on sax with the Aebersold series but it doesn't seem to apply as well to guitar since you don't have the fingerings and there are so many different ways to finger every arpeggio, lick, and scale on the guitar. The Mickey Baker books have the fingerings but I'm worried it may be too basic for soloing..has anyone had success with it? By the way, this is my first post so . I've followed this forum for about a year and gotten tons of useful information from it. Finally decided to overcome my laziness and set up a user ID.

 

Not much discussion about Baker here.

 

Mickey B. is definitely the book to go to if you're getting into jazz guitar. However you will find very, very few people who ever get to the soloing chapters in Part 2 of the book. Mike Joyce has an excellent website devoted to the Baker Book so be sure to check it out.

 

You will find it posted in the following thread at JazzGuitar.be:

 

http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/getting-started/2425-mickey-bakers-complete-course-jazz-guitar.html

 

I suggest repeating your question there.

[The Maestro]

Yeah, those two threads have helped me get through the first part of the book. But not much discussion on how effective the soloing section is and whether there might be better alternatives. But I'll pose the question there.

 

You're right, though. For all the people who recommend the book (and justly so..it's helped me alot), I see very few who say they've finished it. Hope I can buck the trend.