So, you want to try your hand at playing jazz trumpet. Well, you’ve come to the right place!
In this intro guide to jazz trumpet, we will explore everything you need to know to start playing jazz on the trumpet. While there are core principles of jazz that aren’t instrument-specific, to truly master jazz trumpet, we’ll need to focus on a few trumpet-specific things.
In this guide, we’ll focus on trumpet specifics and examine the techniques, nuances, and approaches that make this classic instrument so popular across multiple genres, from classical music, modern jazz, jazz-rock, and free jazz to hip-hop and neo-soul.
We’ll discuss—
- Methods to cultivate your unique jazz trumpet tone, emphasizing breathing, buzzing, and articulation techniques.
- Refine your practice routine specifically for jazz trumpet, enabling you to tackle common challenges and elevate your playing.
- Offer key study points to enhance your jazz theory knowledge and practical musicianship as it applies to the trumpet.
- Go over 15 famous jazz trumpet players you need to listen to.
What distinguishes most players from the jazz trumpet legends?
Dedication and the right approach.
With focused effort and intentional practice strategies, you’ll witness remarkable growth in your trumpet sound, technical skills, and understanding of jazz theory. And, if you are looking for a structured approach to mastering jazz, no matter what instrument you play…
…then you need to check out the Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle.
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As a trumpet player, you don’t want to miss out on the Jazz Trumpet Accelerator course, which we’ve designed to take your technical trumpet skills to the next level.
Ready to supercharge your jazz trumpet skills? The Inner Circle has everything you need.
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Table of Contents
Constructing Your Jazz Trumpet Sound
At its core, jazz music is about self-expression. Some jazz artists spend their entire careers chasing their own personal sound. One thing you can do to get the ball rolling is to start thinking about what kind of trumpet player you want to be.
How do you want to sound?
Know What You Want To Sound Like
There is a big tonal difference between Louis Armstrong and Chet Baker. These and other jazz artists have given their sound a lot of thought. As a developing jazz trumpeter, you should consider how you want to sound.
It’s not to say that you should try to sound exactly like your favorite famous jazz trumpet players, but you should consider the styles, attitudes, and playing personalities that came before you to inform your sound, even if you do so to stand out from them.
Also, consider what you want to do with your trumpet. Maybe you want to lead your own jazz combo, or perhaps you want to play trumpet in jazz orchestras. Do you want to be avant-garde, or are you looking to preserve the traditions of jazz trumpet? Maybe you want to make ambient music or play Afro-Cuban jazz.
Maybe you’ll want to try your hand at all of these things.
It’s okay if you don’t know exactly what you want to sound like yet. It’s also okay if your sound goals keep changing and shifting. The Miles Davis from 1980 sounds way different than the Miles Davis from The New Sounds (1951), his debut album. Changing and evolving is a part of being a jazz artist.
Wind vs. Air
Before diving into specific jazz trumpet techniques, we should also briefly discuss the difference between wind and air. The trumpet physically produces sound by vibrating at different frequencies. But what makes the trumpet vibrate?
Your embouchure and the breath you push through it.
Air is static. It’s everywhere all around us, and it’s the medium through which sounds travel. Air is like oil paint you’d use to paint a portrait. However, paint without thought or direction is just a glob on a stretch of canvas.
Wind, on the other hand, is air with purpose and direction. It’s your breath, which you use to communicate (and also play wind instruments). In this sense, wind is like the act of painting or moving the paint around the canvas to create something intentional.
You have to think of the wind you generate as having a purpose. Each breath must be intentional.
How To Develop a Good Jazz Trumpet Tone in 3 Steps
With the philosophical aspects of being a trumpet player out of the way, let’s talk a bit more specifically about the physicality of playing the trumpet.
1. It All Starts With Breathing
You don’t need to overblow to produce a solid trumpet tone. Overflowing can lead to fatigue, blown chops, and bad tone. What is more important is your breath control, not how hard you can blow.
Breathe With Your Belly, Not Your Chest
Take in a deep breath. As you did so, your shoulders probably raised higher, and your spine may have stretched out a bit. However, you probably didn’t take as full of a breath as you could have.
Instead of breathing vertically, where your chest and shoulders rise, breathe horizontally. Expand your stomach fully when breathing in, and you will take in more air than you could with only your upper chest.
By fully expanding your belly, you are stretching your diaphragm down (and taking in much more air as a result). With more air, you’ll have more wind to create your jazz trumpet sound. Do this exercise to strengthen your diaphragm muscle.
Only try this breathing exercise while seated comfortably! If you haven’t breathed this deeply before, you can get lightheaded!
2. Buzzing Exercises: To Buzz or Not To Buzz
There tend to be two camps when it comes to practicing buzzing—those who are for it and those who are against it.
Those trumpet players who are against it suggest that it isn’t necessary to practice buzzing to play the trumpet and that it can lead to unnecessary tension.
Though this can be true, with the proper awareness, control, and approach, buzzing exercise can be an excellent tool for helping a trumpet player develop wind control, refine their sound, control pitch, and explore the function of the tongue.
The main idea behind practicing buzzing is to develop a technique that doesn’t rely on the trumpet to produce a clear, controlled sound.
Three Types of Buzzing
- Buzzing the Leadpipe: Where you remove the tuning slide so that air leaves the trumpet sooner. This is the most similar to playing the trumpet.
- Buzzing the Mouthpiece: Where you only blow air through the mouthpiece. This is harder than buzzing the leadpipe.
- Free Buzzing (Just Lips): This is the most challenging type of buzzing to practice. You are entirely relying on your lips to create the sound.
You don’t need to practice buzzing for hours a day. Too much buzzing practice can harm your form and cause you to overblow.
You only really need to practice buzzing for 2 minutes a day.
Buzzing Exercises
The following exercise combines singing, mouthpiece buzzing, and free buzzing. This will help you work on relating slight embouchure changes to different pitches. Be sure to do this exercise in time!
- Reference pitch
- Sing the pitch
- Buzz with lips
- Buzz with mouthpiece
- Buzz with trumpet
3. Long Tones on the Trumpet
Long tones are essential to practice on any wind instrument—it’s no different for the trumpet. You can put all your buzzing and breathing exercises to work by practicing long tone exercises, which will help you build endurance, stamina, and pitch control.
Long Tone Tips
- Don’t rush through long tone exercises! This is when you can deeply analyze your sound and enhance your connection to the instrument.
- Use a Metronome! You should always be practicing time wherever you can. Long tones provide a great opportunity to work on time.
- Use a Tuner! You should use reference pitches to train your sense of pitch.
- Practice different attacks and articulations for the beginning, middle, and end of the note.
Refine Your Jazz Trumpet Technique
Breath is one vital aspect of playing trumpet, but it isn’t the only important thing you need to focus on. You also need to focus on how your breath interacts with the other essential aspects of playing the trumpet, such as your finger technique or your tonguing technique.
There are a few best practices you should keep in mind when practicing trumpet.
Getting to the Bottom of Bad Technique
Ask Yourself: Is it Just Your Fingers?
Jazz trumpet is comprised of five crucial components:
- The Fingers
- Wind Production
- The Lips
- The Tongue
- The Left Hand
These factors must work together to produce a clear and consistent trumpet sound. What you think is only a fingering issue might be a coordination issue between the fingers and tongue, the fingers and embouchure, or maybe between your air and fingers.
Practice Passages, Phrases, Lines, and Melodies with a Trumpet Berp.
A trumpet berp is a plastic device that screws onto the leadpipe of your trumpet. It’s designed to hold the mouthpiece so you can practice buzzing while holding the trumpet as usual.
The berp will help reveal what aspects of your technique are holding you back. (Again, with buzzing, it’s just you and the mouthpiece!) By practicing using a berp, you can refine your embouchure, wind, and tonguing techniques while practicing the fingerings.
Here is a blues head:
- First, play it as you normally would and take note of problem areas you encounter.
- Then connect your mouthpiece to the berp and try it. It will be much harder to play convincingly.
By doing this, you’ll be able to feel whether it’s your wind, your embouchure, or your tongue.
- Spend time refining your technique on the berp until it sounds how you want it to.
- Move the mouthpiece back to the trumpet and try the passage again.
Here are 28 other blues heads you can try this on!
Mental Practice Off Of The Trumpet Is Also Crucial
Many jazz musicians don’t spend enough time with mental practice. Sure, we need to practice on the trumpet, but our brains also need time to practice off the instrument. That’s why you should run through jazz trumpet exercises mentally and on your trumpet.
A great way to do this is to play air trumpet and sing (or buzz to the best of your abilities) the exercise. This not only reinforces the correct fingerings but also builds your musicianship by forcing you to create the pitches.
Essentially, if you can sing a piece of music without hearing it first, it proves that you’re playing it with your mind and not just your instrument. You are strengthening the mind-music connection.
For the following exercises, read through them on your trumpet, then play the exercise on air trumpet with the correct fingerings, singing the music.
Listen to Jazz Trumpet Players! Here Are 15 Jazz Trumpeters You Need to Check Out.
The following list contains some of the most famous jazz trumpet players. These jazz musicians span the decades, from early jazz trumpet players to contemporary trumpeters. This jazz trumpet players list isn’t in any particular order—as each has contributed much to jazz.
Also, plenty of jazz trumpet players are not listed here but deserve celebration and acclaim. I wanted to give a general overview of the jazz trumpet world, so this is not a “best of” list!
So, without further ado, here are 15 jazz trumpet players you need to check out.
BEFORE YOU CONTINUE...
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1. Louis Armstrong
image source: Wikimedia Commons
We have to start our list of jazz trumpet players with Louis Armstrong.
Often referred to as “Satchmo” or “Pops,” Louis Armstrong is arguably the most influential figure in jazz history. He significantly impacted trumpet playing and vocal stylings. His professional career began in the 1910s in New Orleans and lasted until 1971.
Louis Armstrong witnessed jazz from birth well into its maturity, and many consider him the best jazz musician ever. From “Potato Head Blues” and “West End Blues” to “It’s a Wonderful World,” Louis Armstrong had so much to offer the world.
His influence on other jazz trumpet players can’t be understated either. He influenced everyone from “Little Jazz” Roy Elridge to Dizzy Gillespie and Wynton Marsalis.
Check out:
- Hot Fives and Sevens (2000)
- Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy (1954)
- Ella and Louis (1956)
- What A Wonderful World (1968)
2. Dizzy Gillespie
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Known for his swollen cheeks and bent trumpet, Dizzy Gillespie was a pioneer of bebop and Afro-Cuban jazz. Diz played alongside legends like Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson, and John Coltrane throughout his long career and acted as band leader for his own groups.
This jazz musician was extremely influential in the Bebop era and beyond.
Be sure to check out these Dizzie Gillespie albums:
- Birks’ Works (1957)
- World Statesman (1956)
- Diz and Getz (1955)
Also, check out Dizzy Gilespie playing on A Night in Tunisia:
3. Miles Davis
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Perhaps the most famous of all jazz trumpeters (and maybe all jazz musicians), Miles Davis was a major figure in multiple jazz movements, including cool jazz, hard bop, and fusion. His long career began way back in the age of bebop and acoustic jazz and went well into the electronic era.
His trumpet tone and musical personality are instantly recognizable.
Check out these Miles Davis albums:
- Kind of Blue (1959)
- Bitches Brew (1970)
- Birth of the Cool (1957)
- Sketches of Spain (1960)
Check out this early recording of Miles Davis playing “So What:”
4. Chet Baker
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Renowned for his lyrical and melodic trumpet playing style, Baker was also an accomplished vocalist. His career took off when he joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in 1952.
Be sure to check out these Chet Baker records:
- Chet Baker Sings (1954)
- Chet (1959)
- Chet Baker & Strings (1954)
Check out Chet Baker and West Coast cool jazz tenor saxophone player Stan Getz playing together live:
5. Clifford Brown
image source: Wikimedia Commons
His life was tragically cut short, but “Brownie” is remembered as one of the best jazz trumpeters in jazz history. Clifford Brown played with famous jazz musicians like Max Roach, Miles Davis, and Horace Silver and was a founding member of the group that would become Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
Check out these Clifford Brown albums:
- Clifford Brown & Max Roach (1954)
- Study in Brown (1955)
- Brown and Roach Incorporated (1955)
Check out Clifford Brown playing in this rare TV clip:
6. Freddie Hubbard
image source: Wikimedia Commons
If you haven’t checked out this jazz trumpet player, now is the time to indulge!
Freddie Hubbard is a powerful player known for his role in hard-bop and post-bop jazz. He was an alumnus of the great jazz group Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He also played on one of my favorite albums of all time—Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil.
Here are some Freddie Hubbard albums to check out:
- Red Clay (1970)
- Straight Life (1971)
- Hub-Tones (1963)
Check out Freddie Hubbard playing on Joy Spring:
7. Lee Morgan
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Lee Morgan was a leading voice in hard bop and best known for his composition “The Sidewinder.” Also, an alumnus of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Lee Morgan released several albums with his own band.
Check out these Lee Morgan albums:
- The Sidewinder (1964)
- Search for the New Land (1966)
- The Gigolo (1968)
Check out Lee Morgan playing with the Oscar Peterson Trio in 1961:
8. Wynton Marsalis
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Wynton Marsalis is a modern trumpet master who’s not only a virtuosic player but also an educator and advocate for preserving jazz music.
Check out these Wynton Marsalis albums:
- Black Codes (From the Underground) (1985)
- Standard Time, Vol. 1 (1988)
- J Mood (1987)
Check out Wynton Marsalis playing traditional jazz with period-accurate instrumentation (banjo instead of guitar!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCCwfl37k18
9. Art Farmer
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Known for his warm and melodic trumpet and mellower flugelhorn playing, Farmer played with renowned saxophonist Benny Golsen.
He was too young to be drafted during World War II, which means he was available to play gigs in Los Angeles during the 1940s. Influenced by the swing era and big band musicians switching to bebop, Art Farmer took these new musical elements and developed his own jazz style.
Here are some Art Farmer albums to check out:
- Meet the Jazztet (1960)
- Blame It on My Youth (1988)
- Modern Art (1958)
Check out Art Farmer playing in 1964:
10. Clark Terry
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Clark Terry was a celebrated trumpeter and flugelhorn player and was recognized for his impressive technical prowess and rich, warm tone.
He had an expansive career that spanned many decades and included performances with some of the most significant big bands and musicians in jazz history (he was a member of the Count Basie Orchestra and Duke Ellington’s orchestra).
Check out these Clark Terry albums:
- Serenade to a Bus Seat (1957)
- Color Changes (1961)
- Portraits (1989)
- In Orbit (1958)
Check out Clark Terry playing with valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer:
11. Arturo Sandoval
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Arturo Sandoval is a Cuban-born trumpet player who rose to jazz fame when Dizzy Gillespie took him under his wing and helped him establish a presence in the American jazz scene. This incredible musician has won several Grammy Awards and nominations.
Still active in the scene, he has appeared on numerous albums as a sideman and has released many albums as a band leader.
Check out these Artural Sandoval albums:
- Straight Ahead (1988)
- Hot House (1998)
- Live at Yoshi’s (2015)
Check out Arturo Sandoval play the jazz standard “There Will Never Be Another You:”
12. Dave Douglas
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Dave Douglas is a modern jazz powerhouse. This contemporary jazz trumpet player is an esteemed composer, arranger, and performer who has worked alongside many household names in the contemporary jazz scene.
He got his start playing with Horace Silver in the late 1980s and hasn’t stopped since. Douglas has released numerous albums and has appeared on countless more. He formed a record label, Greenleaf Music, in 2005, which has put out 70 albums to date.
Be sure to listen to some of his albums!
- Parallel Worlds (1993)
- In Our Lifetime (1995)
- Strange Liberation (2004)
- Bow River Falls (2004)
Check out the Dave Douglas quintet:
13. Blue Mitchell
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Blue Mitchell was one of the more lyrical of our trumpet players, having a distinctive voice and unique style. His composition “I’ll Close My Eyes” (embedded below) is one of my favorite tunes!
Blue Mitchell got his start playing with the Horace Silver Quintet but would soon play with a wide range of incredible musicians, from Chick Corea to Ray Charles! He was also a Blue Note session musician, playing with various jazz legends, from Grant Green to Dexter Gordon and Jimmy Smith.
Here are some Blue Mitchell albums to get you started:
- Blue Soul (1959)
- Blue’s Moods (1960)
- Collision in Black (1969)
- Bantu Village (1969)
Check out my favorite Blue Mitchell tune:
14. Nat Adderly
image source: Wikimedia Commons
Nat Adderly was the younger brother of Julian “Cannonball” Adderly, who rose to fame playing with the Miles Davis sextet on Kind of Blue.
Nat Adderly was an incredible composer, arranger, and performer who worked alongside his brother in the Cannonball Adderly Quintetand with other musicians.
Adderly is most famous for his contributions to hard bop and soul jazz. His iconic composition, “Work Song,” is a jazz standard.
- Introducing Nat Adderley (1955)
- To the Ivy League from Nat (1956)
- Soul of the Bible (1972)
- Double Exposure (1975)
Check out Nat Adderly playing his original tune “Work Song” in 1990:
15. Woody Shaw
Woody Shaw is one of the finest trumpeters of the 20th century. He was not only an accomplished jazz musician but also an incredible band leader and arranger. He played with many incredible jazz artists, like Chick Corea, Eric Dolphy, and Herbie Hancock.
His role as a session musician for Blue Note Records helped him play jazz with other incredible players and made him a first-call, in-demand player.
- Love Dance (1976)
- Little Red’s Fantasy (1978)
- Woody Shaw Live Volume Four (2005)
- Lotus Flower (1982)
Check out this audio recording of Woody Shaw soloing on “On Green Dolphin Street” in 1979:
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