This September, 2002 issue of Guitar Player mag has a nice article by the very famous jazz guitar player named John Jorgenson. Although I don’t like the tone of the article because it sounds like he is trying to say he is the first gypsy jazz player to ever come from the United States, he gives a few very nice tips on how to improvise, and its well worth the money I paid for the magazine. I would probably have to fork out $30-60 for a guitar teacher to teach me the same material.

In brief, he talks about the abbreviated dimished chord voicings that we all know and love from the Robin Nolan books, he touches chromatic movement a bit, mentions the use of two fingers rather than 3 or 4. He shows how to glue arpeggio based runs in harmony to underlying chords, build tension with half step accidentals, and how to create your own ornaments. Most importantly, he mentions ‘encircling chord tones’, in which you play the note above and the note below the note you are targeting just before you get to it.