In this lesson you will learn to play a jazz guitar solo in the style of Wes Montgomery.

The solo is over a jazz

blues in F and is full of classic Wes licks and ideas that you can apply to your own playing.

Here’s the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRPFclqo8tw
The first 8 bars use the F minor pentatonic scale, mixed with the major 3rd (bar 3). Mixing b3 and 3 is often
used by jazz musicians to create a bluesy sound. One way to do this is mixing the F minor blues scale with
the F Mixolydian scale. The blue colored notes in the F minor blues scale are “blue notes” (used in bar 6).
In bar 12, a gm9 arpeggio is used. You could also use a Bbmaj7 arpeggio to achieve the same sound:

Bar 16 uses the B Lydian Dominant scale (= F Altered scale). B7 is the tritone substitute of F7 and creates
an altered sound over F.
The classic lick in bar 20 uses the G Harmonic Minor scale over D7, creating a 7b9 sound:
 If you want to learn more about how to apply Wes Montgomery’s style to your own playing, check out our
ebook How to Play in the Style of Wes Montgomery.

There is no doubt that Wes Montgomery (aka The Thumb) was one of the most legendary players of
all time. He was one of the best single-line soloists in jazz history, on the guitar or otherwise. His
lines had driving rhythm, interesting note choices and always had a sense of melody and melodic
development that has made him stand out from his peers for the past 60 or so years.

A true legend, Wes Montgomery left a huge impression on the jazz community with his recording
output, inspiring future generations of guitarists to pick up the guitar and explore the jazz idiom at the
same time.
Beginning his career by learning and performing note-by-note transcriptions of Charlie Christian solos,
Wes quickly moved on to become one of the most influential guitarists from his, or any, era. His influence
can be heard in the playing of great guitarists such as Pat Martino, George Benson, Pat Metheny and Emily
Remler, just to name a few. You would be hard-pressed to find any jazz guitarist that wasn’t influenced by
Wes’ playing at one point or another in their development.
Since Wes was such a powerhouse in the jazz guitar world, it is a good idea to spend some time studying
his licks, phrases, and improvisational concepts, which is what this lesson is designed to do. So, grab
your favorite axe (an L-5 if you have one handy) and begin exploring these commonly used phrases and
improvisational concepts taken from the playing of one of the greatest jazzers of all time, Wes Montgomery.
Recommended listening: Smokin’ at the Half Note (live)

Wes Montgomery Lick List

1. How To Practice These Licks
2. Mini Licks (Patterns)
 Minor Pattern
 Dominant Pattern
 Major Pattern
 Altered Dominant Pattern
 Combined Patterns Lick
2. Short II V I Licks – Major
 Short 2 5 1 Lick 1 (Video)
 Short 2 5 1 Lick 2
 Short 2 5 1 Lick 3
 Short 2 5 1 Lick 4
 Short 2 5 1 Lick 5
3. Short II V I Licks – Minor
 Short 2 5 1 Lick 6
 Short 2 5 1 Lick 7
 Short 2 5 1 Lick 8
4. Short II V I Licks Solo
5. Long II V I Licks
 2 5 1 Lick 1 – C Major
 2 5 1 Lick 2 – C Major
 2 5 1 Lick 3 – G Major
 2 5 1 Lick 4 – G Major
 2 5 1 Lick 5 – G Major
 2 5 1 Lick 6 – F Major
6. Minor Licks
 Minor Lick 1 – D Minor
7. Dominant Licks
 Dominant Lick 1 – Eb7
  Dominant Lick 1 – G7
8. Octave Licks
 Octave Lick 1 – A7
 Octave Lick 2 – 2 5 1 in G Major
9. Chord Licks
 Chord Lick 1 – Bb7
 Chord Lick 2 – Bb7
 Chord Lick 3 – 2 5 1 in F Major
 Chord Lick 4 – 2 5 1 in F Major
 Chord Lick 5 – 2 5 1 in F Major
 Chord Solo
10. Blues Licks
 Blues Lick 1
 Blues Lick 2
 Blues Lick 3
 Blues Solo
11. More Wes Montgomery Lessons

How to Practice These Licks

To help you take the licks on this page further in your practicing and performance ideas, here are a few
exercises that you can use to work these phrases into your playing.
1. Before you learn how to play any lick, check out the theory behind the phrases to figure out the
building blocks of the line, allowing you to create your own similar lines in the future.
2. Play the licks in different keys across the neck.
3. When studying a lick, find at least one other fingering in a different part of the neck.
4. Transpose licks up or down an octave to have them available in at least two ranges on the neck.
5. Begin to alter the lick in your solos by changing the rhythms, adding notes into the phrase and taking
notes away in order to make it less of a memorized phrase and more of a part of your playing overall.

Wes Montgomery Patterns

Learning jazz guitar vocabulary often means studying lines and phrases, breaking them down
and understanding the building blocks of each line so that you can create your own improvised lines and
phrases.
As well as studying longer lines, and breaking them down on your own, you can also study mini licks or
patterns, lines that are 1 to 4 beats long, that you can then combine in your playing to create improvised
lines in your solos.
In this section, you will learn four patterns in the Wes style that you can add to your vocabulary, as well as
combine in order to create longer phrases when bringing these ideas to your jazz guitar soloing lines and
phrases.

Minor Pattern
The first mini-lick is a m7 phrase that comes from Wes’ concepts and is based on the 3 to 9 arpeggio. This
means that when playing over Am7, you are using the Cmaj7 arpeggio to outline a rootless Am9 sound:

Cmaj7 Arpeggio C E G B

Played over Am7 b3 5 b7 9

To help close the line, the second last note is the root, which helps resolve the Cmaj7 sound. But, you
don’t necessarily have to have the root in your line when playing 3 to 9 arpeggios, that is up to you.
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Dominant Pattern
Moving on to a dominant chord, here is a pattern that uses a trill (G-A-G), as well as a leap from the 3rd
(F#), to the root (D).
This type of large leap (from the 3rd up to the root), is characteristic of Wes’ lines, and helps to break
things up when using chord tones, rather than simply running up or down the arpeggio in your playing.

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 Major Pattern
You will now learn a mini lick over a maj7 chord, which features to approach notes:
1. F# to G: a lower approach note.
2. C to B: an upper approach note.
These two approach notes highlight the root and 3rd of the underlying chord, and use the 7 and 4 of the key
to lead into those notes by half step.
Playing 5-7-1-4-3, which is the main interval pattern of this lick, is commonly used by Wes, and again, is
a great way to break up chord tones so they aren’t played in order in your lines.

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Altered Dominant Pattern
The final mini lick uses tension notes over E7alt, before resolving back to the Am7 (iim7) chord in the
progression.

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Wes Montgomery Combined Lick

To finish your study of these Wes Montgomery patterns, here is a longer phrase that is made up of the four
mini licks you learned previously in this lesson along with a few connector notes to make the longer line
sound smooth.
I’ve also moved a few of the licks to other positions of the neck to help them all connect. Moving lines to
other fingerings, in the same key, is an essential practice tool when learning lines such as these as it helps
you quickly access them no matter where you are on the fretboard during your solo.
This is just an example of how you would combine these smaller ideas to form a longer phrase, so make
sure to experiment with connector notes between the licks, as well as bringing in a few mini licks
and improvising the rest of the line when taking these ideas further in your practice routine.

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Short II V I Licks – Major

When studying jazz guitar, one of the toughest progressions to begin outlining in your solos is the short ii
V I progression.
 With three chords in two bars, this chord progression goes by quickly, providing a challenge for all levels
of guitarists. When learning how to play over these fast-moving chord changes, one of the best study
approaches is to learn from the greatest names in the genre. And, there’s no bigger name than Wes
Montgomery.
In this section, you’ll learn 7 different Wes Montgomery ii V I licks over short changes, both major and minor,
as well as a sample solo over the Miles Davis tune Solar.
By working on these lines, you’ll expand your vocabulary, as well as learn concepts that you can use to bring
a Wes vibe into your own solos.

Short II V I Lick 1 – Major

There are three concepts in this lick that you can take out of this context and study on your own in order to
be able to build Wes style licks of your own.
1. The first concept is the F triad being used to outline the Dm7 chord in the first half of the first
measure. The F triad (F-A-C), outlines the b3, 5 and b7 of the Dm7 chord, giving you all the sounds you
need to outline that change without hitting the root at any point.
2. There is also the use of the G Mixolydian mode over the G7 chord (the notes E-F-E-C in the second
half of the first bar). This is a pretty common mode choice over G7, and it’s one that Wes used often in his
playing. Of note, is the pull-off from the F to E (b7 to 6), which helps propel the line forward rhythmically,
moving beyond the note choices themselves.
3. The last item is the use of the Blues notes in the first and second bar, which come from the C minor
blues scale. Playing the tonic blues scale, in this case C since the chord progression is in C major, over any
chord in a ii V I is something that Wes did often, and it’s a big reason why he had such a bluesy sound in all
of his improvised solos.

Short II V I Lick 2 – Major

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 The first line uses chords tones in the first bar to outline each chord change.
 There’s also a characteristic leap from the 3rd to the root of the F7 chord, which you can hear in many
of Wes’ solos.
 Over the Bbmaj7 chord, there’s a blue note added between the 3rd and 2nd of the scale, the Db note
which is the b3 over Bbmaj7. Mixing blue notes into your arpeggio and scale lines will bring a Wes vibe into
your lines, as it’s something Wes did constantly in his playing.

Short II V I Lick 3 – Major

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 This second line begins with ascending 3rd intervals, something Wes was found of using in his
solos.
 From there, the line stays within the diatonic scale for each chord.
 Notice the last two notes over Bbmaj7, where you’ll be using the 4th (Eb), to resolve to the 3rd (D).
This half-step movement is commonly used over maj7 chords to create a bit of tension, as the 4th clashes
with the 3rd in the chord, before resolving down to the 3rd.

Short II V I Lick 4 – Major

This final major ii V I line uses two blue notes over both the F7 and Bbmaj7 chords.
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 Over the F7 chord, you’ll use a b3 blues note, the G# (Ab) near the end of the bar.
 In the second bar, you’re using the b5 blues note (E over Bbmaj7), as you create a bluesy sound in
the first half of that bar.
By adding b3 and b5 notes over maj7 and 7th chords in your lines, you can create that blues-inspired
sound that permeates many of Wes’ solos.

Short II V I Lick 5 – Major

This major 2 5 1 lick uses a G9 arpeggio in the first bar.

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Short II V I Licks – Minor

Short minor ii V I changes tend to handcuff players more easily than their major key counterparts. This is
mostly because more scales are needed to outline these changes, as compared to just one scale for major
key ii V I chords.

Short II V I Lick 6 – Minor

In this first example, you’ll see the b13 interval being used to outline the C7alt chord in the second half of
the first bar.
Whenever you have a 7alt chord, it’s a good idea to include at least one altered interval in your lines (b9-
#9-b5-#5), in order to create the altered sound. You don’t have to use all of those intervals, as you can see
in this lick, and often times focusing on one will bring out the 7alt sound without becoming cluttered.

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Short II V I Lick 7 – Minor
This second minor ii V I lick uses a technique that is found in many of Wes’ lines, the descending
interval pattern.
You can see this technique used in every note of the lick, with the exception of the first two notes in the line.
Some of these descending intervals are diatonic, they come from the key, and some are chromatic, they
come from notes outside of the key.
The most important aspect when applying this style of line is to resolve any chromatic notes by the end of
your line. This’ll allow you to use chromatic notes to create tension, and ensure that you resolve that
tension before moving on in your solo.

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 Short II V I Lick 8 – Minor
In this final minor ii V I lick, you’ll notice two important aspects of Wes’ playing that you can export from this
line into your own playing.
1. The first is the Gbdim triad used over the first half of bar one of the lick. This triad implies an F7b9
chord, as Gbdim is the b9-3-5 of F7b9.
2. Over that F7 alt chord, there’s a major 7th interval acting as a passing tone from the root to the b7 of
that chord. This passing tone is often associated with the bebop scale, used to solo over 7th chords, but it
can also be used to solo over 7alt chords. Add in a diminished triad from the b9, or the major 7th passing
tone, over any 7th chord will help bring a Wes vibe into your playing. It’ll also introduce two essential jazz
soloing concepts into your improvisations.

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Wes Montgomery Short ii V I Licks Solo

Now that you’ve learned a few Wes Montgomery short ii V I licks, you can bring some of them together over
a jazz standard. In this sample solo, you’ll see both short major and minor ii V I licks from the previous
examples used to build a chorus over Solar.
After you’ve worked out this written solo, put on the backing track and start to apply the licks from this
lesson to your own solo. You can also write out your own solo over this tune using the licks in this lesson to
practice applying them before you take them to your improvisations.
Go slow when learning this solo, work it one phrase at a time, and memorize each phrase as you learn
them. This way, you’ll not only learn the solo, but you’ll internalize it, which will allow you to integrate these
ideas much easier into your own jazz guitar solos.

Backing Track
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Long II V I Licks

Now that you learned some typical Wes Montgomery phrases over short 2 5 1 chord progressions, let’s have
a look at some longer 2 5 1 progressions.

2 5 1 Lick 1 – C Major
The first lick starts with a series of arpeggios. The first 4 notes make a Dm7 arpeggio, followed by a Cmaj7
arpeggio, then again a Dm7.
The Cmaj7 arpeggio in the first bar contains all the tensions of Dm7:

Cmaj7 C E G B

Played over Dm7 b7 9 11 13

The last bar is build around a C triad arpeggio.

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2 5 1 Lick 2 – C Major
The next lick over a 251 in C major has a nice chromatic line in the second bar, delayed by the Dm
arpeggio.

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2 5 1 Lick 3 – G Major
The next lick is played over a 251 in G major. The second half of the first bar consists of a chromatic line that
is also used a lot by Pat Metheny, outlining a D7b9.

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2 5 1 Lick 4 – G Major
Here’s another ii V I lick in G major, with a nice voice leading.

What is Voice Leading?

Voice leading is making the transition between chords in a chord progression as smooth
or musical as possible. It is not only useful for comping, but also for single note soloing.
I go into more detail in this lesson about voice leading here…

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 The voice leading (the notes in blue) makes a decending line starting at the 1 of Am7.
 Although the rhythm section plays the 2 5 over 2 bars (1 chord/bar), the voice leading suggests an
Am7 on beat 1 and 2 and a D7 on beat 3 and 4 of each bar, like this:
| Am7 D7 | Am7 D7 |
 Bar 2 starts with an Em triad, which sounds like Am9.
 The other notes besides the voice leading are scale or chromatic tones (more about chromatism
here).

2 5 1 Lick 5 – G Major
Here’s another good voice leading example between the b7 of D7 and 3rd of Gmaj7.
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2 5 1 Lick 6 – F Major
This one’s a blues cliche, though in the hands of a master like Wes any cliche sounds good.

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Minor Licks

Minor Lick 1 – D Minor

This minor lick is in the D Dorian scale with some added chromatics. Here is a sample D Dorian fingering to
get you started if this scale is new to you (learn more about guitar modes here: The Beginner’s Guide to
Guitar Modes & Scales):

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Dominant Licks

Dominant Lick 1 – Eb7

The first measure of this dominant lick is fairly straight-forward, except for a cool arpeggio on the 3rd beat of
the phrase. Here, you are playing Dbma7 over Eb7, which is like thinking of a maj7 arpeggio from the b7 of
a dominant chord
By doing so, you are highlighting all of the upper extensions in the Mixolydian mode:

Dbmaj7 Db F Ab C

Played over Eb7 b7 9 11 13

At the end of the first bar, you will find a commonly used Wes Montgomery rhythm, an 8th note followed by
two 16th notes. This rhythmic pattern then continues for the rest of the second bar until you resolve the line
to a Bb triad over a Bb7 chord.

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Dominant Lick 2 – G7
A bluesy lick over G7 with double stops (playing 2 notes at once).
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Octave Licks
Octave Lick 1 – A7
This first octave lick is a bluesy line over an A7 chord, mixing the major 3rd (C#) with the blue note (C) to get
that classic Wes sound.

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Octave Lick 2 – 2 5 1 in G Major

Another approach Wes liked to use with octaves was to run a rhythm across a ii V I phrase, which you
can hear and see in the next example.

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Chord Licks

There are three main aspects of Wes Montgomery’s playing style that most players dig into when working
out Wes’ sound in their studies: single notes, octaves, and chords. This lesson concentrates on chord
soloing, something Wes Montgomery was a master at. Although Wes makes chord solos sound as if it’s the
most natural thing in the world, chord soloing ain’t easy and is something a lot of jazz guitarists struggle with.

In this section, you will learn how to play 5 Wes Montgomery chord licks, learn the theory behind these licks,
and then apply them to a ii-V-I chord progression in your own comping and chord soloing phrases.

Chord Lick 1 – Bb7

This first Wes chord lick uses a number of Bb7 inversions (including 9ths), as well as a chromatic approach
chord to finish the lick in typical Wes style.

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Chord Lick 2 – Bb7
Here is a bluesy chord lick that uses a Bdim7 chord to create a Bb7b9 sound over the given chord change.

Bdim7 Chord B D F Ab

Played over Bb7 b9 3 5 b7

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Chord Lick 3 – 2 5 1 in F Major
To help you work out the following 3 licks in your practice routine, here is a backing track that moves through
four different keys of a ii V I progression.

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 This Wes chord lick uses a few different techniques that can be found in many of Wes’ classic chord solos.
 The first technique is the chromatic sliding, which you can see between the F#m7-Gm7 and Emaj7-
Fmaj7 chords. This is where you play the same chord shape one fret below your target chord, then slide into
that target chord from there.
 You can also see a series of 7alt chords (D7alt-G7alt-C7alt), that build a dominant cycle progression.
This is a common sub in Wes’ playing, and it builds a V7/-V7/-V7progression in the voicings used within the
phrase.

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Chord Lick 4 – 2 5 1 in F Major
The next Wes chord lick also features the chromatic sliding technique as you saw in the previous phrase,
this time between the Amaj7-Bbmaj7 chords at the start of the bar.
As well, the Bbmaj7 over Gm7 superimposition produces a rootless Gm9 chord sound. So, if you ever
have a m7 chord, you can play a maj7 shape from the b3 of that chord to produce a m9 sound in your
playing.
The last concept worth exploring in this phrase is the Edim7 chord used over C7. This produces a C7b9
sound and can be used to bring a bit of tension to your dominant chords when applied to a comping
situation.

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Chord Lick 5 – 2 5 1 in F Major
This last phrase uses a G7b9 chord sound in bar 1, over Gm7, which creates a V7/C sound before
resolving to the C7 chord in bar 2 of the phrase.
When looking to spice up your ii-V-I comping ideas, one of the easiest and most common ways to do this
is to play II7-V7-Imaj7, so you sub out the iim7 with a dominant 7th chord from the same root as you see
here.

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Chord Solo
To help you take these licks from the technical side of your practice routine to the musical, here is a
sample solo over a Bb Blues that uses licks from this lesson in its construction.
Here is a backing track that you can use to practice this solo:
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And here is the solo to practice. Go slow at first, learning each 4 bar phrase, as you learn the entire solo
build in a typical “three-tier” approach that was characteristic of Wes’ playing.
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Blues Licks
One of the aspects of Wes’ playing that many guitarists explore in their studies is the blues, as Wes was a
master of blues-inspired phrases and soloing over the 12-bar blues form.
In this section, you will explore a Wes blues solo, constructed using common concepts and phrases found
in Wes’ soloing output over this commonly used jazz song form.
To help you get this solo under your fingers, each four-bar phrase is pulled out of the solo as a whole,
analyzed, and laid out for you to practice on their own before combining them to form the solo as a whole.
After you have learned any of these three phrases individually, which make up the solo as a whole when
played back to back, try practicing these phrases in other keys.

Blues Lick 1
The first phrase of the solo is reflective of Wes’ blues scale soloing, where there is an opening phrase, the
call, and a concluding phrase, the response.
By playing a call and response phrase within the context of a blues scale, Wes was able to keep a bluesy
vibe in his solos without simply running up and down the blues scale.
The call and response concept brings a strong sense of organization to the line and the overall chorus
whenever this concept is used to build an improvised line.

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Blues Lick 2
Another example of Wes’ use of call and response phrases, here you will see this concept applied to
diatonic notes, rather than notes from the blues scale as you saw in the previous phrase.
You will notice that this call and response phrase starts at the end of the previous line, which is where the
audio example begins below so it includes the entire phrase.
There is also a short concluding lick (the C to D), at the end of the line that brings the longer phrase to a
close.

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Blues Lick 3
The final phrase uses several ii V I concepts that are commonly found in Wes’ classic solos, blues or
otherwise.
The first bar uses G7 in place of Gm7, creating a V7/V to V7 movement in that section of the tune.
Replacing the iim7 with a II7 chord is a common sub in a ii V I progression, and is a sub you can explore
further in your studies as you dig into chord subs over ii V I changes.
The second bar features a tritone substitution, Gb7 over C7, which creates a large amount of tension,
which then resolves nicely into the F7 chord in bar 3 of the line.
Using a tritone sub to create a iim7-bII7-I7 progression, is something that Wes and other legendary players
often draw up to create a tension-resolution vibe in their improvised lines and phrases.
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Blues Solo
Now that you have worked out each phrase on their own; here is the solo as a whole for you to practice
and take further in your jazz guitar practice routine.
To help you practice this solo further, as well as practice your improvisational approach to jazz blues in
general, here is a blues in F backing track:
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If you want to learn how to play like Wes Montgomery with a systematic step-by-step approach, check
out our eBook How to Play in the Style of Wes Montgomery.

More Wes Montgomery Lessons

1. Four on Six Melody & Solo
2. Wes Montgomery Blues Chord Solo
3. Wes Montgomery Chord Study Over Yesterdays
4. Wes Montgomery Blues Solo
5. Octave Solo Study Over Summertime
6. Wes Montgomer Chord Solos
7. Wes Montgomery’s Guitar Gear
8. How to Play in the Style of Wes Montgomery eBook