SpclEd,

After a couple of years of learning music in High School, I've always been able to improvise to a degree due to my strong interest in wanting to know every chord of every tune that I played. Especially after deciding that I wanted to learn about the great jazz standards. This to me knowing the chords is a must. Dexter Gordon went as far as to insist that you learn the lyrics also to get the emotional feel for a song.

I've played with bands and didn't have a clue of a particular song. I'd let someone else play the melody and I'd have the Guitar or Piano player just say the chord right before the change came and I would solo. If you know the chords on your horn you can do this.

I want to say that I quit music in 1975. I started back around 2001 or there about. I'm telling you the thing that greatly improved my skills was the day I discovered the solo feature of BIAB. The folks here are only interest in what the keyboard sounds like.

BIAB is capable of creating an improvised solo differently each time you tell it to do so. Many of the licks at the turn arounds and at the 4th bar of a blues that indicates that you have to move to another chord is amazing. I learned a bunch from this feature. I could care less about the sound! I'm interested in the ideas and licks played over chords. Like trying to figure out how in the hell does that note fit in with the chord there that sounds so cool.

Watching the chords go by on the screen and slowing everything down so as to be able to figure it all out is a lot of fun to me. Most people I worked with in bands around New Orleans, to a degree, were always more interested in impressing the ladies and getting the adoration then actually being an accomplished musician.

For most (not all entertainers) this adoration is what it's all about. Just look at what happened to some of the most famous entertainers when they got old and fat. That's their bag and that's fine. But they will never learn to improvise. There are no ladies to help you practice improvisation. Ha ha! For the most part this theory is true.

However, this topic is about me wanting to know if there is a real swinging jazz improvisor keyboard player on this forum, I want to get to know him, her better. Really!