If you master jazz blues you will have an UNFAIR advantage with all of the rest of jazz improv. He's also the host of the music entrepreneurship podcast "Passive Income Musician.". To bridge the gap from the Bb7 in bar 7, the dominant VI chord is added in bar 8. Many jazz blues standards are written with these changes. The differences in the chord changes start in bar 8. This adds some nice voice leading into the ii chord. We call these chords target chords. When it comes to jazz, the blues is essential to study, not only because it’s so influential in jazz, but because it’s a study in jazz harmony in itself. The blues is a short form that is repeated many times throughout the duration of a song. The blues is most commonly a 12 bar form, though you can find tunes with different variations. Bb is a fairly common key as far as jazz blues goes. My free masterclass “Boost Your Jazz Blues” is 40 minutes of in-depth training where I teach you how to master a jazz blues without relying on … He actively performs around the New York metropolitan area and is the author of the Hal Leonard publication "Visual Improvisation for Jazz Guitar." They represent the best known and most interpreted blues songs that are seen as having permanent value. Bird refers to Charlie Parker, the iconic saxophonist who pioneered Bebop. It came straight out of the oppression of the working fields, where the slaves combined African music traditions, spirituals, and African-American work songs. They are being targeted by a series of other progressions that eventually resolve to them. Hey, good question! Things Ain't What They Used To Be was written by Mercer Ellington in 1941. The differences in the chord changes start in bar 8. This is a great blues head to know and add to your repertoire. Many jazz blues standards are written with these changes. Instead of going to the V chord in bar 9, they play a ii-V into the I7 chord in bar 11. It first appeared on his 1966 record "Adams Apple". Sometimes it’s also called a “Bebop Blues”. When it come to jazz improvisation, I have a special rule: In other words, you could learn all of the licks and tricks you want, but if you don’t understand how jazz harmony works you won’t ever truly get it. Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. His nickname was “Bird,” hence Bird blues, and he took the 12 bar blues and re-harmonized it to make his version of the blues. He is the head blogger and podcast host for learnjazzstandards.com which he owns and operates. Now let’s go over the Basic Jazz Blues. If you don’t know who he is, be sure to look him up! One thing to note is that when it comes to understanding the chords by numbers in blue progressions, the diatonic series does not always represent the same quality you would see from the Major Diatonic Series (I would suggest following the link if you don’t understand chords by numbers or how to build chord progressions.). It is a 12 bar blues with a V7 to bVI7... "Au Private" was written in 1951 by the great Charlie Parker. There is one more kind of jazz blues you should know. You may have noticed the chord in parenthesis in the Basic I7-IV-V Blues, and now you see it again in the Basic Jazz Blues (Cmin7-F7). Often there was a “call and response” element and no strict form. It’s just that those chords are the ones being used. If you are a horn player or other instrumentalist, be able to play the arpeggios. There are a lot of possibilities for adding and re-harmonizing this chord progression, but there are certain additions to the blues in particular that jazz musicians like to use. It's harmonically complex, and because of this, there is a demand for a certain level... You have entered an incorrect email address! This makes it easier to think about rather than relating these chords to the parent key center of Bb. Songs included in major fake book publications (sheet music collections of popular tunes) and jazz reference works offer a rough guide to which songs are considered standards. The series of cycling chromatic ii-V’s leads into the ii (Cmin7) which leads into the V (F7). Coltrane's wife, Naima, named... "Footprints" is a tune written by the great saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The blues evolved, of course, and when early jazz was coming to fruition in the diverse port city of New Orleans, the blues was one of the key ingredients. The chords don’t have to be necessarily in that order. Instead of going to the V chord in bar 9, they play a ii-V into the I7 chord in bar 11. They like to add even more changes into the blues. Is there a reason you placed this in Bb? where exactly is the 1-4-5 sequence? C could be acceptable too, but I find that the most common keys for blues in jazz are Bb, Eb, F, and G. C comes up as well. Brent Vaartstra is a professional jazz guitarist and educator living in New York City. Thanks for the feedback! On the next page, you’ll see a Bird Blues and I will circle the important blues chords so that you can see where he got them from. This is what we call a turnaround. Basic Jazz Blues. Understanding the construction and harmonic movement of the blues is important, but then you need to start improvising over it. The ii-V of vi is a detour that leads into the ii-V of IV7. For example, the I chord is a dominant chord as well as the IV chord. Those are the important chords that were present in the Basic I7-IV7-V Blues, although Parker changed the I7 chord into a major I chord. Cool Blues is a blues head written by Charlie Parker. JazzStandards.com: The premier site for the history and analysis of the standards jazz musicians play the most. Jazz musicians have taken the Basic I7-IV7-V Blues and added more chord changes and variations to it. This is an A–Z list of jazz standards.It is intended to be as comprehensive a list as possible, including those pop standards and film song classics which have been sung or performed in jazz on numerous occasions and are considered part of the jazz repertoire. If you play a chordal instrument such as piano or guitar, be sure you can comp through this and play all of the chords. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be standards changes over time.