Wow...I was in a jazz band as early as 11 years old, and when I was 12 there was a guy hired by my school districtt to be the "Jazz Resident" for all of the schools--8 elementary, the middle school where I was, and the high school.

So one day at practice, the guy asks me if I'm doing anything after schol the following day. I said, "No, why?" He said, "Come on over to the high school when you leave here, there's something I think you'll like." (We got out at 3:00, the high school got out at 2:20, and a paved path was between them.)

On the appointed day, I went over to the high school and found the auditorium I was told to go to. I walked in and it was empty--except for the big band that was on stage, belting out the standards, with that guy conducting them I took a seat in the front row and listened for an hour or so, and then he stopped them. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have a special surprise for you. He'll be performing with us tonight. Now, he's a little tired because he just flew in from Paris, but please give a warm welcome to Mr. Dizzy Gillespie!"

And sure as anything, the legend shuffled out from behind the curtains, into the lights of my high school's stage!

After rehearsal was over, kids filed off stage and the guy points down to me and says, "Hey, come on up here." I sais, "Me?" There was no one else in the seats except for some administrators on the other side of the aisle. So I walked up and he put his arm around me and said "Hey, Diz, you have a second?" Dizzy Gillespie turned around, horn still in hand, and the band leader said, "Diz, I want you to meet a good friend of mine." He shook my hand and said "Oh, it's very nice to meet you. Do you like jazz "Of course I do," I said." "Well, that's very good. It's very nice to meet you..." and he signed a couple of autographs for me, then I left. Almost twenty years later, in 2002, I was standing in Preservation Hall in New Orleans, and as I hear them play "When the Saints Go Marching In," I remember thinking to myself "Man, one the greats of this place told me he was glad to meet me!"

If you want a master improviser, check out Buddy Rich--no drummer like him, I don't think. I remember watching him on PBS as a kid in the 70s. One of Madonna's songs, I think "Holiday," the original version from 1986, has a piano break in it that was supposedly published with the first take--it's improvised.

I actually sat in with the band at my Bar Mitzvah in1984 , the year I met Dizzy Gillespie, and improvised on the keyboard, with a cousin playing drums. The end result was like the first audio clip below.

So how do YOU improvise? I'm assuming you're a musician already. In Jazz, you'll want to take a look at the chords, especially the 7ths. (A hand injury over a year ago has stopped me from playing, so now I do voiceovers and write..)

There is a chord pattern that a lot of songs follow, even pop songs, and it's very easy It's in the song "Blue Bossa."

Listen to how different the versions I've given you are (audio tracks). They wrap the solos around the chords or the actual written music. Believe it or not, as I'm sure you've already found, it's not easy to make music up as you go along. But practice it and it will never sound the same twice--which is what you want.Notice how almost every instrument in every clip is improvised but they still come together

The second to last track is what's actually on the sheet music--boring compared to the others, but you can use that track to practice. that's just the first part--you'll notice it doubles back to that again. And those 8-10 or so chords are the whole song:

I'll even give you the sheet music! http://www.timsparks.com/pdfs/Blue%20Bossa.pdf

That was the song I played at my Bar Mitzvah wi9th a band I'd never played with before that day..

The final track is a song you've no doubt heard two kids playing together on the same piano. But jazz it up with improvization and this is what you get, out of 4 chords: Hear and see the originalt:
http://jeanies_home_studio.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/heartNS.mid.
http://jeanies_home_studio.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/heartnsoul.pdf

.Good luck. Class dismissed!

Of course you can learn to improvise. If you don't have a band to play with, then I recommend Jamey Aebersold's books (start with volume 1, "How to Play Jazz and Improvise") It's basically like karaoke for jazz. It comes with a CD that has the backgrounds for all the exercises, of which I think there are 20 short ones. The book also explains jazz theory basics. After volume 1, most of the other books have full jazz solos that you can try really improvising on, with the CD in the background.