major7 lick – Charlie Parker

Great if you have a major chord for two or more bars.
The basic shape of the line is just a broken major triad.
Charlie often used approach notes in his playing.
A nice example how powerful this could be.

Formula:
1. Chromatic approach from below to root, 3rd or 5th of the triad (start where you want)
2. Next chord tone above, diatonically approached from above
3. Repeat it (next chord tone below “1.” approached chromatically from below and so on…)

major lick - Charlie Parker (8ths) (gif)
[audio:lick_maj7_8ths_(cparker).mp3]

Try and start the lick on the downbeat or play it faster
=> different sound because you’ve all approach tones on the strong beats 😉
major lick - Charlie Parker (16ths) (gif)
[audio:lick_maj7_16ths_(cparker).mp3]