Pat Metheny called him “one of the brightest new talents on the instrument today” – and Dan Wilson’s remarkable phrasing will elevate your jazz guitar vocabulary to no end (2024)

Guitar Techniques is thrilled to present an exclusive video lesson from American jazz virtuoso Dan Wilson. We have six fully transcribed musical examples that showcase a broad range of melodic ideas, concepts and approaches and a range of lines outlining the II-V-I sequence, V7-I resolutions, altered and symmetrical diminished scales, all executed with flawless articulation and a classic jazz tone.

Dan is considered to be one of the shining stars from the current crop of jazz artists active on the scene today, much lauded by guitarist and composer extraordinaire, Pat Metheny – who dubbed him “one of the brightest new talents on the instrument today” – and greatly championed by the superstar double bassist, Christian McBride.

Wilson’s musical journey began performing in the Ohio church community, before studying at Hiram College. This developed into recordings and performances with artists such as Joe McBride, Joey DeFrancesco, Russell Malone, Jeff Hamilton, David Sanborn and many more.

Wilson received a Grammy award nomination for his collaboration with DeFrancesco in 2017, and this flurry of activity led on to the natural conclusion of him releasing his first solo album as a bandleader in 2012, with To Whom It May Concern. Three other releases have followed since; these are, Balancing Act, Vessels Of Wood And Earth, and his most recent, the incredible Things Eternal.

Dan has flawless technical command, a beautiful tone and intelligent and inventive melodic and harmonic ideas. His arrangements and compositions are both rooted in the foundations of jazz, but they also sound original and remarkably current.

His playing swings and grooves, with a superb balance of technical facility and emotive feel. We’re certain that whatever your stylistic preferences might be, you’ll find much to like and learn from Dan’s playing. So without further ado, let’s grab our guitar and dive straight into the musical examples from the man himself.

Dan presents a set of six of his favourite jazz lines for us here, based around a range of ideas and concepts ranging from major II-V-I ideas with lots of chromatic decoration, mixing scale-based and arpeggio-derived melodic lines, V7-Im resolutions and lines designed to allow you to intelligently introduce tension and release into your sound. Don’t be put off if at first these ideas sound too fast or look too involved. Building technical facility doesn’t happen overnight, so patience and persistence are your friends here.

Also, it’s worth remembering that these examples will also work perfectly well at reduced speeds, although naturally the sense of tension to release will be prolonged as the line is extended.

While it’s a great idea to learn these examples as written here in their entirely, you can also gain a huge amount and expand your options greatly from taking just small pieces from any phrase that you really like, and attempting to assimilate these melodic fragments into your existing vocabulary! They work great in blues, too!

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 3, Bass 5, Middle 5, Treble 4, Reverb 4

Dan usually pairs his Benedetto guitar with a Fender Deluxe combo amp to achieve a balanced and warm classic jazz tone. Select your guitar’s neck pickup and experiment with your picking location, along with the angle of the pick to achieve the sound that you prefer.

If you’re using light-gauge strings, or perhaps single-coil pickups, you can thicken the tone by either rolling the control back, leaving your volume somewhere in the middle of its range, rather than fully up, or a combination of both approaches. Alternatively, you could reduce the treble on your amplifier or amp modeller.

Example 1. Chromatic II-V-I line

Dan begins with a dexterous chromatically decorated II-V-I line in the key of G major, articulating A minor 7 (A-C-E-G), D7 (D-F#-A-C) and Gmaj7 (G-B-D-F#) with the associated G major scale (G-A-B-C-D-E-F#), albeit with substantial chromatic decoration along the way.

Example 2. Combining vertical and linear ideas

In this idea, Dan mixes short arpeggio-based lines (vertical) with step-wise scalar motion (linear), along with some chromatic decoration to outline E7alt to Am7, implying the common move between V7 and Im.

For our E7alt, the melodic and harmonic material is derived from a combination of E Phrygian dominant (E-F-G#-A-B-C-D), the fifth mode of A harmonic minor, along with a touch of E Superlocrian (E-F-G-Ab-Bb-C-D), the seventh mode of F melodic minor.

Example 3. George Benson-inspired altered line resolving to I minor

Yet more V7alt-Im action here, although for this example Dan exploits the tension of E Superlocrian/F melodic minor (E-F-G-Ab-Bb-C-D), resolving to the root of A minor. The rapid position shift can be tricky here, so ensure you remain patient and build up speed over time.

Example 4. Dorian flat 2 line

Here we see another line derived from F melodic minor (F-G-Ab-Bb-C-D-E), although we’re resolving to the second degree, giving us a mode that is frequently called Dorian b2 (R-b2-b3-4-5-6-b7).

While the obvious application for this group of notes might be against minor 7th chords (R-b3-5-b7), it’s also often used as a form of altered dominant, where we re-purpose the intervals to give us a variation of Mixolydian, albeit with no 3rd and two altered extensions, the b2 and #2 intervals (Mixolydian sus, altered 9th: (R-b2-#2-3-4-5-6-b7).

Example 5. ‘Inverted Diminished’ line

Dan attributes Kenny Kirkland as the influence behind this line, and uses a scale that he refers to as ‘Inverted Diminished’.

This is also commonly titled half-whole diminished, an eight-note scale that, as the name suggests, is constructed with a symmetrical step pattern of alternating semitones and tones (R-b2-#2-3-#4-5-6-b7).

The chord Wilson plays at the end of this example, a 13b9 (voiced R-b7-3-13-b9, low to high) is also explicitly derived from this scale source.

Example 6. V7alt to I minor line

For his final example, Dan is again mixing vertical approaches, using an F# major triad coming from A ‘Inverted Diminished’/half-whole scale, and linear, descending Bb melodic minor/A Superlocrian, once again implying the move between V7alt and Im7 in the key of D minor.