Paul Maine

Software Engineer, Musician and Life Long Learner

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Pattern

Review of “Best Minor II-V-I Patterns” book by Steve Neff

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Steve Neff is a wonderful sax player and has written a number of eBooks and other instructional material.  “Best Minor II-V-I Patterns” consists of  80 Minor II-V-I patterns. Each pattern is four bars and includes the pattern in all 12 keys. The first measure is a ii7b5 chord. The second measure is a V7b9 followed by two measures of minor. I have finished playing through all of the patterns in one key. Learning all 80 patterns in all 12 keys will keep you busy for awhile. There are many nice patterns and I suggest that you add this book to your collection.

I have a post on this website entitled II-V-I Minor Long Sequence Backing Tracks that you can use with this book.

You can purchase the book at Neff Music

Minor II-V-I Pattern 1 Based Upon Harmonic Minor Scale

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There are numerous jazz resources that provide some nice patterns for II-V progressions that have a one measure duration. Many standards have II-V-I progressions that occur over 4 measures. Once such song is “All Of Me”.  Measures 5 and six are a B7 ( if you are playing tenor or soprano ) and 7 and 8 are an E-.  We can take the two measures of B7 and substitute F#m7(b5) and then B7(b9) . The harmonic minor scale lends itself to this type of progression.  Be sure to download the pattern and try it out on “All Of Me”. You can also use another harmonic minor pattern from the download beginning on measures 9-12.

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250 Jazz Patterns by Evan Tate

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After many years of study and reading many jazz improvisation books, I have reached a conclusion that one of the best ways to learn to improvise is to use motives. Motives are short melodic ideas usually consisting of 2-4 notes.  Riff is a slang term for a motive. The basic idea is to pick a motive and move it through the chord changes while you are improvising.

It is necessary too keep in good physical shape in addition to practicing the saxophone. I like to think that it is necessary to “spend time in the gym” on both activities. When I go to the gym I usually download vidcasts or podcasts to my iPhone to listen to while I am working out. During a vidcast search on iTunes I came across a series of vidcasts named the “The 250 Jazz Patterns Vidcast” by Evan Tate.

Evan is a professional saxophonist and instructor with more than 20 years experience. He is currently on the jazz faculity of the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Munich Germany.

Evan has written a book entitled “250 Jazz Patterns”.  The book starts out with simple patterns or motives that are appropriate for a beginner and then moves on to more advanced patterns. Once such pattern is the 1,2,3,5 pattern. If you are improvising over a C major chord the 1,2,3,5 notes would be C,D,E and G. This pattern is built from notes of the C major scale. Evans book is full of excellent useful patterns.

I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to improve their improvisation skills. You can learn more about the book and purchase it from the following link:

250 Jazz Patterns by Evan Tate

Eventually you will proceed to a “Pay using PayPal by clicking here” link. Once you click on this page you will be redirected to a  PayPal screen that is in German but don’t fret. You just need to change the “Land” field from Deutschland to USA ( if you are English speaking ) and all fields on the form will change to english. The price of the book is 35 Euros. At the time of this writting that’s about $47.24. This book is a real bargain at that price.