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 Aebersolds 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 Dont 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 Aebersolds
www.jazzbooks.com and of course I have to mention ours at the University of North Texas
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I hope this helps you get started.
