Deecy

I've been working on this for a while. Some things to think about and try:

a) Bb is the flat 5th of E, and the reverse is true; E is the flat 5th of Bb.

b) Scales have 7 of the 12 chromatic notes. They are "inside" sounds.

c) The rest of the chromatic 12 are "outside". Playing them creates tension.
So play a scale that contains these outside tones.

d) It happens to be the scale on the flat 5th of the 5 chord.
E.g. Play Bb maj. scale over E7th. (And, Bb is the flat 9th of the 1 chord (A).
e) For more tension, play the major scale which is the flat 9th above the 5 chord. (F maj. scale over E7th)

f) Be sure to resolve to the Inside!

Brekelefuw

Playing the dominant scale a tritone away from the current dominant chord you are playing is called tritone substitution. It gives the tune a more chromatic feel.

A 2-5-1 in Cmaj is Dmi7 G7 Cmaj7. If you use a triton sub. it becomes Dmi7 Db7 Cmaj7. The reason you can substitute a dominant chord a tritone away with the one you are on in because they share the same notes that give the chord quality.

For a C7 chord, the E and the Bb are the most important notes. They are the 3rd and the 7th. On F#7, the 7th is E and the 3rd is Bb/A#. This gives them the ability to be interchanged without most people noticing.

beartrumpet74

Tom -
nice to read a post that is actually about music! BUT

It seems to me that you are not so much speaking about inside/outside playing as you are altering the V chord in a ii-V-I

A couple of problems you are going to run into.
1. If you play an F major scale over a E7 chord you will be playing, at some point, the note G over a chord who's third is a G#. I understand that the 9th of an E7 chord is F# and if you play a G you are essentially playing a #9 on a dominant chord which is great BUT .... I am speculating that you are hearing the following sound... The E altered scale or diminished whole tone as some call it, which is spelled E -F-G-Ab-Bb-C-D-E. This is essentially the sound many players use over a dominant 7th chord to alter it when the chord change says for example E7#9#5. An easier way to learn this scale or include this sound in your solos would be just to think in terms of ascending melodic minor a half step above the root of an altered dominant chord. For example, when you see E7 alt or E7 #9#5 just play F melodic minor - F-G-Ab-Bb-C-D-E-F. See, same notes as I listed above. This is a really great sound!
The reason I make this distinction is simple...On any chord as the previous respondant to your initial post indicated, the 3rd and 7th give the chord its quality. By thinking Bb major over the E7 chord or F major, you are omitting the G# which can be really important to play at times. The scale I mentioned above has both the G that we talked about and an Ab or enharmonically stated a G#. Presto! then you have both notes at your disposal and you won't be creating the bad habit of only hearing #9 or again , b3 over these dominant chords.
That being said, if you really want to get the inside/outside thing happening, I suggest you take a look at Mark Levines " Jazz Theory" Book. He has a chapter devoted solely to inside/outside playing and he deal with some realatively easy but wonderful stuff like playing a motive and then playing is a half step or whole step ( could be anything depending on the context) away from the orginal motive.
Some really simple ideas to get a more modern harmonic sound in your improvisation if I might expound would be as follows.

Major chords. -
Several ideas here, the first being to learn your major pentatonic scales for a couple of reasons
1. They sound good
2. Because the 4th degree of a major scale sounds fairly bad when played against a major chord, many improvisors raise the 4th to create a "lydian" sound. Taking this concept one step further, you can do a really nice sounding thing when you combine the idea of playing pentatonics and lydian.
On a major chord you can often play a major pentatonic a whole step above the root of the chord you are playing over. For example... when you see FMaj7, you can play G major pentatonic, which is spelled G-A-B-D-E-G.
This is cool for several reasons
1. it has you playing the 9th of F major a lot which is nice.
2. It includes the 3rd and 7th of F major, so you won't sound like you don't know what chord you're playing.
3. And, most importantly it contains the note B natural, which is the raised 4th of F major.
This sound was used almost non-stop by Woody Shaw. He played major pentatonic so much sometimes it annoys me! He also used these pentatonic scales to get the inside/outside thing happening. He would very often play a pentatonic scale or lick and then move it around to the pentatonic scale a half step, whole step, or 4th , or anything really at times, away from the first pentatonic he started with. He usually did this in a very angular way with his lines having a very hip shape. This is one of the main things when it comes to assimilating Woody's sound.
Anyway- I hope some of this helps.....my best wishes
Matt

Deecy

Lot to think about here.
Good stuff. I love too, the jazz minor scale (lowered third only) played a half step above the tonic (your Db7th) when the dom. (G7th) underlies it. Real Wes Montgomery sound.

beartrumpet74

Oh and -
the pentatonic thing I outlined is just one of the many many ways in which some guys take it out and in.
Lately I've just been screwing around with intervals I like and then moving them in every direction I can to create pleasing melodies with lots of space. My two main focuses in improvising right now is melody and space, and one other... not trying to sound just like everyone else. LOL
Peace
Matt