I’ve been talking with students about the use of vocabulary, “licks”, and learned musical sentences in improvisation in 20th century Black American Music. If we compare music to visual art, I think sometimes it can be helpful to practice improvisation more like creating a collage than trying to paint something completely new on a blank canvas – taking previously discovered melodies and ideas and arranging them in interesting ways. I’ve been focusing a bit more on some old vocabulary for my own playing, and trying to put it together, doing my best to avoid running through patterns and focusing specifically on melodies. Here’s a little sample of that from some car practice I was doing a while ago (in the days of Covid, and everyone working from home, it seemed like the courteous thing to do). Hope you like it!