Smooth Jazz Examples
- The American Guitar Academy
- May 30
- 6 min read
Smooth jazz is a divisive subject, and one that hardcore jazz gatekeepers detest. Some simply dismiss the genre as cheesy, and nothing more than a soundtrack for Ron Jeremy’s life.
I happen to really enjoy smooth jazz, I find it equal parts relaxing and interesting. The smoothness of the style promotes relaxation, though there is always something to learn, or a new approach to explore, when you dig a little deeper.
Lick One - Pentatonics and Targeting Notes
One of the most important components of jazz, and by extension smooth jazz, is the requirement to target notes effectively. This means working through a lick or pattern that might go in an unexpected direction when played by itself, but makes perfect sense with the harmony to support it.
The first lick in the short video containing two short examples can be seen in Fig. 1. The lick uses position one of the Em pentatonic scale (12th fret) and proceeds through the shape in intervals of 4ths.
This is a relatively common pattern, and is a fantastic warm-up exercise as well as the perfect vehicle for breaking up the quickly tiresome pentatonic shapes. Following the pattern in this way, you would expect to play the 12th fret of the B string next - not so fast! Fig. 2 shows that we are actually transitioning to the 13th fret of the B string. In this bar, the chord changes to an Am9, and the 13th fret of the B string is the minor third of that chord, one of the strongest notes you can play, and the one that gives in the ‘minor’ sound. The 12th fret of the B string is a B note, this is the second, or ninth, of Am and so perfectly fits with the Am9 chord.
You can use this little trick to give the sound of an Am9 chord (though technically the chords would be Am(add9) when the backing harmony is just Am - it lends you playing a sophisticated edge. Some musicians achieve this sound by accident or they recognise the sound, though it helps to know the theory behind it so you can utilize the trick in other keys and areas on the fretboard.
Lick Two - Rhythmic Variation, Articulations and Superimposition
Music is not a strict art, you don’t have to start and end everything in the same way. The start of this lick, highlighted in green in Fig. 3, starts on the ‘and’ of beat 4 in the previous bar - before it changes back to Em9. This is called a ‘push’.
A ‘push’ in music can give us some much needed variation in our lead guitar playing and other areas of music; it helps blur the lines between bars and prevent what we play from sounding too regimental.
This can happen in between beats too - displacing rhythms can be a fun experiment to try by yourself! Notice how some of the other notes change, or end, on irregular beats. Others are also extended with a tie, lots of variation happening!
There are countless forms of articulation that you could employ when playing a song, some you probably do naturally and without thought, such as vibrato. However, we are talking about staccato here - see below for a link to a video I created explaining this in further detail, and the note in question highlighted in blue in Fig. 3. Cutting the note short, which is what staccato is explained simply, adds depth to your rhythms - the effect this can have is often underrated and can sometimes be the key to unlocking the correct sound when learning or creating riffs or lead patterns.
This part of the lick uses the E minor pentatonic, with the addition of the 9th (F#) - a great choice given the underlying harmony.
Finally, we get to my favorite part of this lick. Something I learned from listening to the great musician Michael O’Neill’s album ‘Never Too Late’ back when I was studying at university. Upon hearing a similar line, I transcribed it and played with the idea, though I could not figure out what was going on musically - it was my amazing tutors that helped me understand, and now I will pass the knowledge on.
The musical concept at play here is called ‘superimposition’. At its most basic level, this is when you play a set of specific notes over a chord to make it sound like something else. To understand this properly, we need to remember that the strongest resolution in music is arguably the V - I movement, also known as a perfect cadence. The chord that we are moving to is an Am (although with a couple extra notes sprinkled in) - the V chord we need to create a perfect cadence in this scenario is E7, however, it is currently Em - how can we change that?
Let us compare the two chords we have. Here are the notes in an Em chord:
E | G | B |
Here are the notes in an E7 chord:
E | G# | B | D |
As luck would have it, there are two notes that are shared between these chords - E (the root) and B (the fifth). The main thing to change is the 3rd - G to G# - and add a D note into the equation. One way to do this, and how I have written it in this example, is with a G# diminished arpeggio - see the red highlight section in Fig. 4. The notes in a G# diminished chord are:
G# | B | D | F |
If you play this arpeggio over an E root, you get an E7 chord, more specifically an E9 if you include the F as I did here. We are using the dominant function of E7 and E9 in the same way - using just the G B D notes will be good enough for you. Be careful not to make any ideas you create using this method too long, as the rest of the song might start to sound a bit weird - we are aiming for a brief moment of tension and release. As with many techniques, be careful not to overdo it either, else the effect will be cheapened considerably.
The green highlighted section in Fig. 4 is a simple Am, root position triad descending through one octave. This leads into the Am9 chord perfectly, and is the perfect resolution after the moment of tension before. As with the other lick, I targeted the ninth in Am9, a B note, to tie it all together.
It must also be noted that in this example I use 16th notes, starting on the ‘e’ of beat 2 (1 e + a) - I wanted the link to be quick and not take up too much time. There is only a small window to pull this lick off, and I needed to get in all of the information.
Great Examples
Here are some of my favorite smooth jazz examples, in no particular order.
Michael O’Neill - Always Love
This song has a very simple melody, but it completely fits the song and that is what is the most important. There are some masterfully played harmonies and blues ideas, but I also greatly appreciate the phenomenal backing provided by some great musicians in the field.
Norman Brown - After the Storm
This is not too dissimilar from O’Neill’s offering, and follows in the footsteps of legends like George Benson (keep an eye out for my blog post on George!). Simple, well thought melodies and captivating jazz runs are served in equal measure. Also, the groove just wills you to move!
Check out this video interview that TAGA’s own Michael did with Norman:
Dave Grusin - Friends and Strangers
Differently from the others, Grusin is primarily a keys player, equally as comfortable on a grand piano as he is on an electric one. Dave has a very strong songwriting ability, aided by his years as a renowned composer for TV and film - this song is masterclass in simple but effective phrasing, arrangement, melody crafting and would you just check out that bass solo!
Final Thoughts
Smooth jazz is one of those ‘melting pot’ styles of music that seems to have developed into something unique. You can still clearly hear funk, jazz and pop sounds within the music, but always in a way that results in something different to its parts.
I think there is a lot to be learned here, especially if you have never explored the genre before. It would be useful to attempt to learn some of the licks we discussed and try your best at understanding the theory behind them - it is not that important if you don’t quite understand, though!
If you want to know more, or wish to keep exploring the genre, then get in touch with some of the awesome teachers that work for the American Guitar Academy.
