Hi,
Getting started on improvisation is an exciting endeavor. Scales are only a part of a good solo. Remember that when one takes a solo, you are really spontaneously writing a new melody over a set of chord changes or vamp. The importance of hearing what sounds good and playing melodically cannot be stressed enough. Other wise, you will just sound like a technical theory book and be too diatonic to improvise a new melody.
Knowing what scales relate to the various chord types is an important part of the process of learning to improvise. Dan Haerle wrote a fantastic book covering chord/scale relations called “The Jazz Language”. It is available in many places including Jamey Aebersold’s website
www.jazzbooks.com . This book groups various chord types: Major, Minor etc and details various possibilities for them.
Using the existing melody of a tune as a guide and improvising around it also works very well. Some of the older players I played with called soloing “taking a ride”. Metaphorically speaking, they would take the melody for a ride around the block and add embellishments. Good examples of that include some solos by Oscar Pettiford from the recordings of Ellington tunes with Monk including “I Got it Bad”, “I Let as Song Go Out of My Heart”, and “It Don’t Mean a Thing”. Transcribing other great solos and analyzing how the notes relate to the chords is very helpful.
Chromaticism is also an important part of modern jazz playing. I like to say
“it is all about the resolution”. That means the last note of a phrase should be a good tone that relates to the chord. The thirds and sevenths of a chord are commonly used to resolve a phrase, but other upper partials work too.
There are many good summer combo programs for improvisation that include jazz theory classes. Among those programs are Jamey Aebersold’s
www.jazzbooks.com and of course I have to mention ours at the University of North Texas
www.jazz.unt.edu
I hope this helps you get started.
