First of all, good for you in working on your own to learn this challenging style of music. Thank you for being part of Music Savvy in your journey. I'm old enough to remember those Dick Grove workshops! So you've tried a lot of methods in order to improvise on the trumpet the music you hear.

Let's begin with the melody. Listen to your playing of the head. My first suggestion is to be able to play the melody well: in time and with the right notes. By the second phrase, you mostly play the right notes but by :17, you struggle with that phrase up to F#. Now, maybe you were paraphrasing the melody, but my advice is to be able to nail playing the melody. It sounds like you have some challenges with your air support. It's hard to play a brass instrument without proper strong air for tone, range, and articulation. This is beyond what you are probably looking for, but stronger technique solves a lot of issues when playing jazz!

Let's me address the improvisation itself. I don't think the answer is better and longer licks, especially since you already have "hundreds." You have followed me long enough to know that I am not an advocate of learning and repeating licks, especially if you want to play more "in the moment." In fact, playing authentically in the moment is the opposite of building a solo using memorized licks and patterns.

Just Friends is a hard tune. It may not be the best showcase for you as apposed to the blues or simpler standards like Bye Bye Blackbird that does NOT cycle through the keys of C, Bb, G, Ab, D, E-. like Just Friends If you are to play a tune like this, you must hear the changes. It sounds like you are looking at the changes as you play and running the associated scales. But the challenge with that is that the chords change too rapidly for a coherent melody to be weaved through them relying on range of the moment scales and patterns that fit each individual chord. One of the resources I've included is me noodling for a few choruses over the Just Friends changes. Listen to how I create phrases weaving in and out of the changes. It doesn't sound like I'm coming up with a new scale or pattern for each separate chord or key. The phrasing has a musical arc to it that happens to travel through the different chords and keys. The difference is that you sound like you are hunting for the "right" notes and scales for each bar or key rather than playing melodic phrases across multiple bars that start and end with musical logic.

Again, this is not an easy tune. Practice what I am suggesting using a much simpler tune, again, like the blues, Blackbird, Autumn Leaves, Fly Me to the Moon, etc. Experience melody-first playing that doesn't require such complicated harmony.

I heard you singing a bit. I strongly recommend singing and then playing what you sang. Singing eliminates the friction of the trumpet. Speaking of eliminating friction, play through a couple of the tracks in my Groovz Playground. A few of them are free samples not requiring a Jazz Circle membership (musicsavvy.com/my-account). The point of these is that there is very little, if any, harmonic movement. That way, you can concentrate on making musical melodies that don't need to conform to complicated key changes like Just Friends.

So to recap: 1. strengthen your trumpet air support (my secret has always been to practice outside). Try that if you have a place that you can be by yourself not bothering anyone! 2. Practice over simpler tunes with fewer key/chord changes. 3. Sing and then play what you sang - just short phrases. Groovz Playground easily facilitates this way of practicing. 4. Transcribe phrases of solos you like and that are within your technical abilities. If you still want to learn Just friends, take phrases from my recorded solo or another brass player that is within your technical ability and really learn them so well that your playing masks the original recording. That's how you use transcriptions.

Let me know if this helps you!