Improv

 I have a technique for improv which is to isolate one phrase and just improvise the hell out of it. So, I would be repeating four measures over and over and developing as many ideas as possible. Obviously I didn't invent this idea. I do it, say, over the first four measures of the bridge to "Body and Soul." Or I play the first melodic of "Bemsha Swing," and then improvise in the space between that ending of the melody and the second phrase: essentially one measure.  

A few things will happen:

Settling down into a pattern, with some definite preferences for what I want to play.  

Getting bored with the pattern, trying to find new ideas. 

Those new ideas form new patterns. 

I can play two short phrases, one long one, a long and then a short, a short and then a long. I can play mostly diatonic notes, or go way into chromaticism. Some things sound too corny for me, like too many Gershwinesque minor thirds. 

I do while watching Netflix on the computer; then interesting associations form between the two parts of the brain. I can play, and then the episode of something I have watched comes into my memory.