Joe Diorio: Fusion Guitar: Guitar Book & Online Audio

Diorio's 16 solos demonstrate multiple approaches to the same eight progressions, showing students that there's never just one "right" way to navigate changes. The emphasis on reusable licks and comping patterns gives players tangible material to deconstruct, adapt, and build into their own vocabulary rather than simply memorizing single arrangements.

Energetic and exploratory. These solos breathe with the restlessness of jazz fusion, pushing past standard ii-V resolutions into unexpected harmonic spaces. The writing balances technical facility with musicality, creating passages that feel both impressive and singable.

Intermediate to advanced jazz guitarists ready to expand beyond traditional bebop vocabulary and explore modern harmonic territory. Students working toward fluency in fusion and contemporary jazz styles will find multiple models for how to use chromaticism, extensions, and rhythmic displacement over familiar changes.

• Slow down the online audio and focus on one progression at a time until you can hear how each solo's phrasing relates to the harmonic structure.
• Isolate the comping patterns first; getting the voicings under your fingers makes understanding the solo's melodic choices much clearer.
• Record yourself playing over the backing tracks without referencing the written solos, then compare your choices to Diorio's to identify which licks or approaches resonate with your ear.
• Transpose solos to different keys using the patterns Diorio demonstrates; this builds facility and shows how the same ideas function across the neck.

Assign progressions individually over several weeks as part of a jazz guitar curriculum, asking students to learn one solo completely while creating their own over another progression in the same key. The book works well as a supplementary text alongside improvisation study, offering concrete examples of how to think through changes beyond the foundational method level.

• Improvising over ii-V and other classic jazz progressions with modern harmonic devices
• Recognizing and adapting guitar-specific licks and patterns across different keys
• Reading and performing jazz chord voicings with clear comping rhythms
• Understanding the relationship between chromatic approach notes, extensions, and harmonic movement
• Developing fluency in fusion-era phrasing and rhythmic displacement