I apologize for resurrecting an older thread, but this one is golden, particularly for those of us obsessed with jazz, and with developing our vocabularies and our personal voices.
As far as Mike Stern's musical vocabulary, Jimmy Haslip told me that Mike is constantly working on new "ideas" (the term "licks" seems too simplistic), and that Mike maintains notebooks he calls "the scrolls", full of these ideas, which would explain in part Mike's deep musical vocabulary. I started doing the same thing as a result of Jimmy's advice, but my notebook is a tad... thinner, so far....
Incidentally, Marcus Miller also advocates doing something similar. Verbatim from his website FAQ:
"Get a tape recorder and solo into it. You'll probably hear an idea that was almost good. Take that idea and work it out. Shed it in all keys at different tempos. What's cool about this is that you already know that this idea comes naturally to you since you improvised it yourself into the tape recorder, all you have to do is refine it.
Develop a catalogue of your own personal ideas. Play them often. This way, when you're in the middle of a solo, you'll have some launching pads - things that you naturally hear and can get to in order to get going.
Tape everything!"
This is so true! I didn't know the full measure of my "suckiness" up until I started to record myself.
As for Richard, I don't think he "intrinsically" sucks at improvising 'cause the guy can apparently play almost anything he thinks about on the fly! however I'm pretty sure he didn't have what I call the "appropriate" practice regiment of the musical poet (true improviser). But who can blame him? Busy schedule, and passionate crowds which are content with the strict minimum of fast moving lines.
After all it may be better to dance with succes now than to end up only satisfying a handful of jazz students after you have fallen asleep!
