Matt Otten is a Dutch jazz guitarist, composer and jazz guitar educator, connected with people like Maria Harp, an world world-famous jazz bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, fusion jazz bass player Gary Willis (from Scott Hendersons Tribal Tech).

Matt Otten has posted a series of ”Learn To Improvise” series of jazz guitar lessons (Jazz Exercises, All Jazz Refill, and Smooth Jazz Refill) - “providing everything to get started learning jazz guitar improvisation”. Check it out on his web site http://www.mattotten.com/ .

Here is a demo of what you can expect:

Lesson on how to create interesting solos over a single harmony with just a singe major scale - through good tone, rhythm and phrasing.

You can download the backing track for this lesson from Matt Ottens and Maria Harps page at Soundclick. Click “Music” and scroll down to the bottom of the page to Backing Track 1.

Download backing track from Matt Otten and Maria Harp page at Soundclick. Click “Music” and browse down to Backing Track 2.

YouTube (the link is to his profile on youtube)

The tune is available on iTunes. Learn to play like this:

Fabulous «smooth jazz» video lesson with chord from Matt Ottens sitt studio, in four lessons.

Bm9 (x2x232)
Em9 (x25432) b in the bass
A11 (5x543x)
Dmaj9 (x5465x)
Ab9-5 (4x433x) sub for D7
Gmaj7 (3x443x)
Dsus2/F# ()
Em7 (0x5430)
F#11 (2x210x)
Bm9 (x2x232)

• Matt Otten Secret Combination på CD Baby
• Matt Otten plays Elferink Guitars (Sept, 2004)

• Matt Ottens homepage
• Matt Otten's Jazz Guitar Improvisation Exercises and Examples. A “full package of 25 exercises/examples of jazz guitar improvisations, from very elementary to advanced levels, including explanations, tips and practicing advice for each example, full guitar sound tracks, custom backing tracks in various tempos for practicing, guitar midi files and a fretboard visualizer VSTi plugins…”. See his wiki for more on these lessons.
• The Otten & Harp website

Matt Otten on YouTube

Users videos: