This episode is sponsored by the Learned Jazz Standards Inner Circle.

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jazz standards, the inner circle has everything you need and more.

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Podcast listeners can get 50% off their first month when you go to LJSinnerCircle.com.

That's LJSinnerCircle.com or find the link in the show notes.

Now, on to today's episode.

Music the show notes. Now, on to today's episode. All right, my friends, what's going on?

Brent here from Learned Jazz Standards.

Welcome to another episode of the Learn Jazz Standards podcast.

Here to answer your jazz questions five days a week, help you become a better jazz musician,

have more fun than ever playing music.

And just to make this thing feel a little less stressful for you, right?

I mean, learning jazz doesn't have to be hard. It can be a lot of fun. It can be enjoyable. The journey is really a pleasure to be a part of, especially if you're doing the right things. And so that's what I'm here to help you do. All right, we have a great question from Jeff. Let's give it a listen. Hi, Brent. My name is Jeff. I play the tenor saxophone. I think of myself as something of an intermediate player. I play in a band. We play a mix of standards and bosses and blues and sometimes some funk. My question is this. Rather than being a gifted natural musician, I think of myself as something of a grinder. When I learn a new song, it can take me quite a while to develop a coherent, you know, musical idea to play over those harmonic changes. And oftentimes when I've done so, for as long as I'm playing that particular standard, I will play it essentially the same way with maybe some modest tweaks of harmony or rhythm.

My question for you is, as a professional musician, when you play a song that you know well and have played many times

before, how much actual improvisation do you do compared to playing ideas that you have developed

before or have played over that song previously? This is a really, really good question. And it's actually a question that I know

is on a lot of folks' minds because when you listen to some of the best jazz musicians in the

world, those records, it sounds so effortless, right? Like when you listen to Dexter Gordon,

when you listen to Bill Evans, when you listen to Paul Chambers, John Coltrane, you name it,

...