My interest in jazz improvisation started in the 9th grade when a new band director came to our school. Not only did he own a shiny Selmer Mark VI tenor but he had played "jobs" where he "faked" tunes and "ad-libbed". As my interest in improvising developed he encouraged me to "take off" on some of the short solos in our stage band music. When I asked him how to do this he replied. "You sit and get ideas, then you play them." Needless to say, the few ideas I came up with didn't sound so good or simply didn't fit where I put them. This continued for a couple of years until I started taking private lessons from a sax teacher who knew a little more about chords and scales and what you needed to know to play solos. I didn't really start to improvise at this time, but I learned a lot of tunes, listened to a lot of jazz saxophone players, transcribed a few solos and hand copied other student's transcriptions. When I entered college, I was fortunate to take David Baker's Jazz Improv class, then in its' infancy. At this point I was able to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and I started to improvise. Since then I've transcribed many solos, read many books, and played many gigs where I improvised. I would like to share some of this knowledge with you.
 
 

5 Things you can do to become a better improvisor

ii-V7-I patterns from early Sonny Stitt solos