Jazz Masters Free Guitar Tabs
From LoveToKnow Guitar
If you love jazz guitar, you'll no doubt love to find jazz masters free guitar tabs on the Internet. Jazz is one genre of music where the best of the best can truly be considered masters of the art form. Guitar players like George Benson, Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian and many others have been blowing music lovers' minds with their incredible playing for many years. The interesting thing about jazz, however, is that jazz musicians often play each other's music. Just because a horn player like Miles Davis wrote a particular song doesn't mean that a guitar player hasn't done a version of it. Once a song has been written, it's free for all players to interpret however they like. So if you're a jazz guitarist, jazz masters free guitar tabs can be of assistance to help you learn the basics of these players' styles and to help you pick up some of their most interesting licks. This article will steer you towards some great jazz guitar tab resources on the Internet.
Where to Find Jazz Masters Free Guitar Tabs
Listed below are some excellent sites that provide jazz guitar tabs for free. Before you get too deep into your research, you should understand that it is unusual for an entire jazz composition to be tabbed out from the first note to the last note. There are several reasons for this. First of all, jazz is a very verbose musical style where the musicians play thousands of notes throughout the course of a song. The sheer labor involved in tabbing out an entire composition is therefore very great. Additionally, jazz is an improvisational style of music that is typically performed in live settings. Therefore, jazz musicians never play the same song the same way twice.
What you will typically find when looking at jazz masters free guitar tabs are isolated licks that master guitarists or master jazz musicians are known to play over and over. These licks become signature licks that certain players are known for. Guitarists will often hear another guitarist play a lick and say something like, Wow, that's a cool Charlie Christian lick.
- Chord Melody – This site has fifteen classic jazz standards tabbed out for guitar. Songs like Giant Steps, I Cover the Waterfront, Autumn Leaves, Donna Lee and Fly Me to the Moon are all transcribed here.
- Guitar Masta – Guitar Masta has some great tabs from some of the best masters in jazz. Songs like All Blues, Afro Blue, Chameleon and Straight No Chaser can all be found here.
- Ultimate Guitar – The great sax player John Coltrane has a large collection of his songs tabbed for guitar at Ultimate Guitar.
- Fret Play – Fret Play has a small collection of Miles Davis songs transcribed for the guitar including All Blues, Freddie Freeloader and So What.
- 911 Tabs – 911 Tabs has a few standards tabbed out including Aint Misbehaving, Dancing in the Dark and Night Train.
Jazz Guitar
The website Jazz Guitar gets its own section because it is such an excellent resource for aspiring players. Check out the information they provide on the following master guitar players.
- Wes Montgomery – Wes Montgomery is often considered the most influential jazz guitar player ever. Here are several licks associated with Montgomery played over different chord progressions.
- John Scofield – Another major player in the jazz guitar world is John Scofield. Here is an excellent Schofield lick.
- Charlie Christian – Charlie Christian was the first electric guitar player, and this lick was taken from his song I Found a New Baby.
- Miles Davis – Miles was also the most innovative musician in the history of jazz. Tabbed out here is the refrain from the song So What.
Limitations of Tab
Jazz is probably the least popular style of music for being transcribed into tab. The reason for this is that jazz is a very academic and complex style of music. Despite the impression that jazz is a freewheeling style where anything goes, jazz musicians spend years learning harmony and music theory. This kind of knowledge is not well reflected in tablature. However, tab can still be useful for players who aren't professionals or aren't active students of jazz to figure out how to play simple versions of their favorite songs.
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