How to REALLY play bebop blues

[@walkercatenaccio]

First time listening. All right on the button. Thanks.

[@jpqpmusic]

Valuable lesson, not only on the blues the sixth is a common thing in a lot of tunes both in major and minor. Thanks for sharing.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

@@jpqpmusic yes! Everything used here on the blues Bird used in the same context on other tunes. A lesson that is often overlooked today I think.

[@insidejazzguitar8112]

Really good, thank you. I appreciate the effort that went into finding the harmonically correlated phrases from various recordings. Gives a sense of how Bird heard his way through the harmony.

[@fouroutoffour]

Really great lesson and analysis! Thanks!

[@DenisChangMusic]

nice analysis!

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Thanks Denis!

[@eddiemerribaker]

Super interesting and informative.

[@fretfulguitar1]

Thanks, very clear and useful lesson.

[@vincentchen5341]

I love Barry Harris System. if we see the major as Maj6, then the Maj7 sound that we are so used to has already borrowed a note B from the Ddim7 to create the movement in playing the Maj7 arpeggios. Which means once we start to play 2 4 b6 7 with C6 we are creating harmonic movement.

[@edthewave]

I like the Major 6 as the "1" chord for a major blues. It feels peaceful and resolved, as it is based on the major pentatonic scale. And it's a more "old-school" sound that you hear in the 1930s swing and blues.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Yes a lot of that early stuff West End Blues and so on, very major key.

[@uroko2993]

Not sure whether you have listened to Kapustin’s prelude no.11 or not, the Soviet composer perfectly captured the characters of blues with exquisite harmony applied. The switching between major and minor blues is very interesting.

[@geckobaldy]

​@@JazzGuitarScrapbookIt's funny that they should choose early major harmony and then avoid the 'early' diminished sound in bar 6.

[@irishmuso7129]

@@uroko2993 I hadn't heard of Kapustin. Just listened to no.11. Fascinating. Thank you for that.

[@utopi7]

Very clear and concise! Thanks

[@grahamriach3297]

That's really useful, thanks!

[@elizabethanderson2968]

What a brilliant breakdown!

[@Gk2003m]

2:00: the sixth is common in this idiom. You find Paul Chambers’ bass lines loaded with sixths. Adding them adds motion to the harmony.

[@JohnGriffith-w2w]

I’m starting to sound a bit better but when I listen back to what I played on a gig I only hear clams and how much work I need to do! Thanks for this post!

[@quintinpace2627]

Very good stuff. Lots of great examples to show your points

[@floaty10]

Great lesson. Thanks

[@mbatampangumadimbadien8260]

Hi great again, best way to play be-bop blues, learning from master, all is in that great lesson and for free .Blessings and greatings from FRANCE .Sorry for my English.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Cheer! Yes, it’s all there on the records

[@toreropalido]

Good stuff man!

[@karzkin3049]

I always think about the #IVdim7 as a IV7b9 with the b9 on the bottom, just a different inversion of the chord before. And you could fit that theoretically into your analysis given that the F blues scale contains the b9 of Bb7.

[@JamesSeaberry]

Very good lesson. Thank you.

[@ivanliptak19]

really helpful

[@mitchellbell248]

I've been digging into bird a bit recently and I've noticed that a lot of the time if you look at what he's playing on strong beats, it's almost always just the triad, no 7th or even 6th present. He also seems to have common triads he uses to express different tonal centres. Every bar 8 example you showed the strong beats spell out an F#diminished triad from G harmonic minor, like you pointed out. He also tends to use the Augmented triad from it's melodic minor. Obviously it's impossible to tell how he thought about improvising without asking him, but it seems that the idea of 7ths, on major, minor or dominant chords might have come later on in the history of jazz

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Yes it’s surprisingly triadic

[@bobbysbackingtracks]

great stuff! subed!

[@normanspurgeon5324]

.D minor pentaonic is very playable over an F major- the accompanist can go ahead and add the E flat- for the Bflat 7th, i find the E natural more aggreeable, than E flat- the Bflat 7 aug.11 sound is very similar to a C7 natural 9, sharp 5- so the 4 chord is acting as a dominant- similar to D-7 flat 5 natural 9

[@alexwirtz9497]

Germane to your first argument, even if it's not Bird: every Barney Kessel blues I can think of (Basie's Blues being the most commonly referenced) starts with a I6, stated either in chord melody or as an arpeggio. Dominant 7 on the 1 sounds kinda 60s to me.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

100% agree

[@jameslockhart2223]

I love Now's the Time because a) it's a blues, b) it's the only Bird tune I can play! I can play C Jam Blues in other keys, though.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Try My Little Suede Shoes. And Yardbird Suite isn’t too bad if you just improvise on the B section

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Oh and Cool Blues is a good shout

[@MrSyjdub]

Always the best content. Thank you, from Brooklyn NY. I want to take a lesson. Please give me the information if possible.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Hi - you can email me via my website wwe.christianmillerguitar.com

[@garrettwaters1726]

I’ve been transcribing some of dex’s playing on blues walk and yeah he just straight up plays Fmaj6 or Fmaj7 on the first chord most choruses. He also will spend entire choruses riffing on a simple blues lick and then switch to perfectly outlining the changes with bebop lines in the next. I think switching approaches mid solo is really key to keeping the audience engaged and probably why dex got away with playing such egregiously long solos all the time lol.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Bird certainly does this too

[@hakanozel6694]

Blues for Alice clearly starts with an Fmaj7 also

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Indeed! This progression is similar

[@aussiechiro]

The soloist can play anything as long as he makes music out of it. The comper has to play the chart so the soloist knows what to expect. A major 7 passing note is fine over a minor chord but a major chord changes the key. I think they used a lot of dom7th chords just to kept it moving and you can play pretty free over them. Just my take

[@PohlLongsine]

I didn't even realize I had jazz anxiety until the moment I learned it was being monetized.

[@EDWINPIERCE168]

I just tried to push my own glasses up.

[@Corporations8MyBaby]

At the end of WWII The first bar was always a Bb6 which could also include a b7 - so a DOMINANT (add)13 - The Charlie Christian Tonic chord... and that's in all the early rock n roll too. Jump blues. Western Swing. Rockabilly. Straight dominant 7 chords are more of a 60s thing. I will skip any blues with bebop soling that starts on a Maj 7 - I don't want to hear that.

[@djmileski]

Thank u for monetizing my jazz anxiety

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

@@djmileski bwahahhahaha

[@jwallguitar]

This into has me having LSD flashbacks

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Good. That was intentional.

[@mannoplanet]

very nice... jazz anxiety down about 15%.

[@CusterFlux]

Wait a sec … is that actually a wound G string?!? Whoa! Hard Core! 😲

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Yes

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Actually this guitar won’t intonate with an unwound G. Old school

[@jeremydoody]

I thought this was common knowledge. The whole difference between blues blues and bop blues is that boppers treat the one chord more like it’s in a traditional key. That’s the way I teach it, and more or less the way I was taught (though my teachers weren’t always as clear and explicit as I would have liked). Cheers for a great video 😊

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

@@jeremydoody maybe it is! I didn’t see it explained this way myself coming up, but I think it’s quite clear if you pay attention to the music. Barry taught it this way, needless to say.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

@@jeremydoody also what’s true for bop/bird isn’t necessarily true for all jazz, obviously. I was originally going to do a history of the jazz blues but that would be a pretty long vid. I still have the word doc. Maybe I’ll put it out on ko-fi.

[@jeremydoody]

@@JazzGuitarScrapbook that would be cool. I think the ways that jazzers have treated the blues over the decades would be an incredibly interesting topic. Showing the common thread of true blues, and how the boppers mixed it functional harmony, the modal guys mixed it with modal concepts, the avant- garde guys exploited the crunchy sounds on offer, the fusion guys mixed in the rock sounds, etc… could be very instructive.

[@jeremydoody]

@@JazzGuitarScrapbook and there’s the other side, too, of how jazzers impose blues sounds onto changes where they don’t naturally belong. 🤔

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

@@jeremydoody Yes!

[@insidejazzguitar8112]

Really good, thank you. I appreciate the effort that went into finding the harmonically correlated phrases from various recordings. Gives a sense of how Bird heard his way through the harmony.

[@bozakarlin9034]

Great lesson, thanks.