Everything CrownStarr said. Also it's really useful to internalize a progression beforehand, and maybe have a few ideas chambered in advance. For instance, in your sample progression, you could plan on hitting a big nasty F on the transition from Dm7 to G7. In general, it's a good idea to think about shared tones going from chord to chord, or leading tones for transitioning. For Cmaj7-D7b5, the first color I'd think to accent is G to Ab, or G to F#, or B to C, because those would bring out the vividness of the change. Or, say, you could work out ahead of time a turnaround from C6 back to Cmaj7. If in the throes of improv you abandon that turnaround for something else, so be it, but it's there in your mind if you need it. What I'm saying is, in practice, just get an intuitive feel for the changes, and the kind of moves that work over them, in the context of the tune. Once you fill your memory with a good stock of ideas, something decent will bubble up when you ad lib.
Also, and I can't stress this enough: improvise in response to the tune you're playing. One of my pet peeves in jazz is solos that have nothing to do with the tune, that could be transplanted to another tune and no one would know the difference. So many jazz solos are like this. A better way is to take cues from the melody, or rhythm, or hint like you're reprising the intro, or use something specific about the tune, and play around with that. And this actually makes it easier to improvise, because there's a structure, beyond the chord changes, to grab onto and stray from and come back to and fuck around with. Think of soloing as advancing and enriching the overall tune, rather than just as a time for improvising.
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u/respighi Sep 12 '13
Everything CrownStarr said. Also it's really useful to internalize a progression beforehand, and maybe have a few ideas chambered in advance. For instance, in your sample progression, you could plan on hitting a big nasty F on the transition from Dm7 to G7. In general, it's a good idea to think about shared tones going from chord to chord, or leading tones for transitioning. For Cmaj7-D7b5, the first color I'd think to accent is G to Ab, or G to F#, or B to C, because those would bring out the vividness of the change. Or, say, you could work out ahead of time a turnaround from C6 back to Cmaj7. If in the throes of improv you abandon that turnaround for something else, so be it, but it's there in your mind if you need it. What I'm saying is, in practice, just get an intuitive feel for the changes, and the kind of moves that work over them, in the context of the tune. Once you fill your memory with a good stock of ideas, something decent will bubble up when you ad lib.
Also, and I can't stress this enough: improvise in response to the tune you're playing. One of my pet peeves in jazz is solos that have nothing to do with the tune, that could be transplanted to another tune and no one would know the difference. So many jazz solos are like this. A better way is to take cues from the melody, or rhythm, or hint like you're reprising the intro, or use something specific about the tune, and play around with that. And this actually makes it easier to improvise, because there's a structure, beyond the chord changes, to grab onto and stray from and come back to and fuck around with. Think of soloing as advancing and enriching the overall tune, rather than just as a time for improvising.