Scales for Improvising Jazz

When you are starting learn jazz impro, there is a great temptation to learn the appropriate scales that fit the chord changes, as with the Jamey Aebersold Scale Syllabus. This approach has some merits, it can be a "kickstart" to improvisation: as long as you remember the scales that fit the chord there is little else to concentrate on. This approach does have some pitfalls, if you’re not careful you will end up with a soloing style that just consists of running up and down scales. To overcome this you need to be aware very early on that there is a lot more to improvising. Ideally the scales should help you to construct interesting and melodic solos, you can use them as a pool of notes to choose from out of which to construct your solo, rather than relying on them to be the solo. So you also need to know the chords themselves. In fact I recommend that you really should learn the chords on your instrument (arpeggios) before you learn the scales to fit the chords.

via cafesaxophone.com