hey ljp,
i'm playing pat metheny's "letter from home" with my jazz band right now.  it is a pretty jazz ballad, and a sweet piano feature.  at the end of the song, the rest of the band and rhythm section breaks off, and there's a repeated pattern on the right hand that keeps repeating as it ritards, and then concludes (i wish i could sing it over the internet!)  what i would love to do in this spot is break from that pattern, go into a big, pretty, open piano solo for awhile, then break back into the pattern and end it.  does anyone have any advice for playing an open solo?  what i'm basically trying to do is comp maj7 chords going down chromatically on my left hadn (i.e. abmaj7, gmaj7, gbmaj7....) and doing a bunch of arpeggios and runs over it.  it sounds pretty good, but i still feel uncomfortable soloing in an open manner.  any help that anyone has is greatly appreciated; thank you very much!
There are 2 comments, leave a comment.
open solos have to be developed.  they have a beginning, a middle, and
an end.  i would recommend listening to how lyle mays has done this
on some of the other metheny recordings.  if you can get him away
from the synth he has done some beautiful acoustic piano solos.  
listen to his tribute to bill evans on "as falls wichita so falls wichita falls".
what a great answer!

ben blau
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