Pentatonics for jazz trumpet players

Pentatonic scales can sound a bit tedious when you're improvising if you just repeat them endlessly in different keys but they are useful to practise developing your fingers and flexibility on any instrument. Woody Shaw employed pentatonic sounds in an amazing way, using varied rhythms and employing them in a melodic way. He was unique on the trumpet and it is quite telling that along with Dizzy Gillespie, there are very few people who try and copy that style as much as trumpet players who are transcribed endlessly like Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard. 

The exercises that I have put up on YouTube are adapted from some exercises that I learnt from the Jerry Bergonzi pentatonic exercise book. In the Bergonzi book the exercises are quite extensive range wise so I have tried to make them a little more trumpet friendly. 

Beginning improvisation can be tricky at first because the coordination between brain and fingers takes some practice the first time you are playing "on the spot". These exercises help develop your finger/brain and tongue coordination, providing melodic shapes that you wouldn't necessarily play at first. 

I play these exercises pretty much everyday as they are also a great lip flexibility exercise. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy trying them out and you can down load a pdf of the exercises here. 

Links to some of the videos are here and here.