Guitar Techniques is thrilled to present an exclusive video lesson from American jazz virtuoso Dan Wilson. We have six fully transcribed musical examples that showcase a broad range of melodic ideas, concepts and approaches and a range of lines outlining the II-V-I sequence, V7-I resolutions, altered and symmetrical diminished scales, all executed with flawless articulation and a classic jazz tone.
Dan is considered to be one of the shining stars from the current crop of jazz artists active on the scene today, much lauded by guitarist and composer extraordinaire, Pat Metheny – who dubbed him “one of the brightest new talents on the instrument today” – and greatly championed by the superstar double bassist, Christian McBride.
Wilson’s musical journey began performing in the Ohio church community, before studying at Hiram College. This developed into recordings and performances with artists such as Joe McBride, Joey DeFrancesco, Russell Malone, Jeff Hamilton, David Sanborn and many more.
Wilson received a Grammy award nomination for his collaboration with DeFrancesco in 2017, and this flurry of activity led on to the natural conclusion of him releasing his first solo album as a bandleader in 2012, with To Whom It May Concern. Three other releases have followed since; these are, Balancing Act, Vessels Of Wood And Earth, and his most recent, the incredible Things Eternal.
Dan has flawless technical command, a beautiful tone and intelligent and inventive melodic and harmonic ideas. His arrangements and compositions are both rooted in the foundations of jazz, but they also sound original and remarkably current.
His playing swings and grooves, with a superb balance of technical facility and emotive feel. We’re certain that whatever your stylistic preferences might be, you’ll find much to like and learn from Dan’s playing. So without further ado, let’s grab our guitar and dive straight into the musical examples from the man himself.
Dan presents a set of six of his favourite jazz lines for us here, based around a range of ideas and concepts ranging from major II-V-I ideas with lots of chromatic decoration, mixing scale-based and arpeggio-derived melodic lines, V7-Im resolutions and lines designed to allow you to intelligently introduce tension and release into your sound. Don’t be put off if at first these ideas sound too fast or look too involved. Building technical facility doesn’t happen overnight, so patience and persistence are your friends here.
Also, it’s worth remembering that these examples will also work perfectly well at reduced speeds, although naturally the sense of tension to release will be prolonged as the line is extended.
While it’s a great idea to learn these examples as written here in their entirely, you can also gain a huge amount and expand your options greatly from taking just small pieces from any phrase that you really like, and attempting to assimilate these melodic fragments into your existing vocabulary! They work great in blues, too!
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