Kirk's right.
As I mentioned in another post, swing jazz and bebop have always been about chords. The same is true of some types of country, R&B and blues.
Also previously stated is the fact that pianists & horn players learn scales to train their fingers to deal with the instrument, not to learn to improvise.
When you hear Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstong, Charlie Christian, Lester Young, Charlie Parker or Wes Montgomery you aren't hearing scales. When you hear Doc Watson play Black Mountain Rag or East Tennessee Blues you aren't hearing scales. When you hear T-Bone Walker or B.B. King you're not hearing scales. What you are hearing is melodies played from chords.
I've seen a half dozen articles in Guitar Magazines discussing the scales and modes Pat Martino uses. Yet Martino has stated emphatically on more than one occasion that he does not think in terms of scales & modes. Who are we to believe? The man or the magazine?
I'll end this with a quote from Pat Metheny:
The one beef I have with the "chord scale movement" is that it sort of suggests all seven notes are equally cool, when in fact that's really not the case. There really are usually four notes you want to land on that are the really, really, good ones. Then there are the others you want to get through and some you barely want to touch them. That degree of weight thing is usually not discussed because it is usually presented in the form of modal thinking rather than voice leading. My advice to people is yes, learn the chord scales but also make sure you can solo using just the chord tones. A big chunk of early jazz history was largely improvising using chord tones and improvising around the melody. Those are two valuable entry points.
Regards,
Monk
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