Turnaround Lick Lesson

/Steve Nixon/
Steve Nixon

Steve Nixon

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| Last Updated:
June 26, 2017

Need a cool lick to play over a jazz turnaround? Great! Here’s a new jazz piano lesson video on playing a turnaround lick.

I recommend you watch the video tutorial first and then scroll down for a bunch of extra tips and resources for you to learn jazz. 

The lesson features a lick in the key of Eb. Although there are many common jazz turnarounds and blues turnarounds, this particular lesson specifically features a I VI II V I chord progression).

You’ll find this chord progression in many jazz standards. They’ll  use this chord progression at the end of a tune to get back to the top of the form or use it in the middle  to get back to the I chord.

So, having a lick to play over this chord progression will be very useful for you. The chords in this lesson are Ebmaj7 – C7 -Fm7-Bb7.

More Jazz Licks To Study

A couple other licks that feature the same type of bebop and cool chromaticism are this Barry Harris lick lesson, this Charlie Parker lick lesson, and this Bill Evans lick.

You can also spend some time checking out this Miles Davis lick or this Clifford Brown lick.

Need Some Chords To Play Behind This Lick?

Awesome! I’ve got you covered. You can start by learning the chords in this II-V-I-VI jazz piano chord lesson or this whole lesson on comping chords over Autumn Leaves.

Now what if you love the sound of this lick but the patterns in there seem a little confusing? I’ve got you covered here too. I highly recommend you check out this lesson on the basics of jazz theory.

That will help you get more comfortable with many of the harmonic patterns you’ll find in jazz music.

If you’re brand new to jazz be sure to also check out this how to play jazz piano article.

If you found this lesson helpful have questions please feel free to leave a comment below.

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Steve Nixon

With a career spanning global tours and collaborations with legends like B.B. King and Buddy Guy, Steve Nixon is more than just a Berklee-trained pianist. He’s a bridge-builder for the next generation of musicians. As the founder of Freejazzlessons.com, Steve turns his performance experience into accessible education, reaching over 70,000 students each month. He’s on a mission to keep the soul of jazz and blues alive in a world where music budgets are shrinking. Read Steve's full bio here.

8 Comments

  1. Tonyjackson on March 2, 2012 at 3:21 am

    It would be great to have a pdf of this with fingering

    Reply
  2. Moody on May 25, 2012 at 4:57 am

    Thank you for such an excellent bebop material! I’m working now on solo for Autumn leaves as you recommended and this lick gives me a lot of bebop “bricks” for my own structure!
    Steve you are doing great job here! I can’t wait for your lessons on DVD! Can you tell me the date of an actual release?

    Reply
    • Steve Nixon (freejazzlessons) on May 27, 2012 at 10:43 pm

      Thanks Moody! It would be cool to hear how you playing Autumn Leaves once you get it going.
         The DVD will hopefully be out in the next 2-4 months.  We actually have finished filming content and now we’re in the editing stages.  There is a ton of content so it takes time to go through everything!

      Reply
      • Moody on May 29, 2012 at 4:15 am

        I’m planing to shoot a video when I’ll finish to work on my Autumn Leaves improvisation. It will be a great pleasure for me if you will watch it and post some comments.;)
        I am very looking forward for your DVD!
        Sorry for off-top, but good friend of mine is guitar player and he is also learning some jazz stuff now. Can you advise some similar to this web-site for guitarist or maybe some books or DVD’s?

        Reply
        • Steve Nixon (freejazzlessons) on May 29, 2012 at 5:29 am

          Sounds great Moody! I’ve actually gotten the guitar player question a lot so I’ll do a post in the very near future talking about some places to turn too.  
            In the meantime you can check out Matt Warnock’s guitar site. He’s written a couple guest posts for the site here.

          Reply
  3. shaun on June 7, 2013 at 4:25 pm

    Have just found you and your website. I have played classically for years but have NO theory, jazz or improv background. Without music in front of me I am a lost soul…..so thank you! Tons to learn and work on. It would be great….for music readers like me if you posted the music for the licks……or maybe you have and I am just missing them?? I’ve been trying to break away from music with a very simple fake book. Your lessons on chords, chord progressions and licks have been tremendously helpful.

    Reply
    • Steve Nixon (freejazzlessons) on June 14, 2013 at 1:55 pm

      Hi Shaun,
      Thanks for the kind words. 98% of the lessons on this site feature notation as well on the lesson. This is one of the only ones that doesn’t.

      Reply

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