Everyone's Jazz Chords Sound Bad Until They DO THIS!

Nobody wants to jam with a guitarist who can’t comp. And in the beginning, everyone sounds bad playing chords.

But there are 3 simple rules that will make your comping flow like jazz is supposed to.

So in this video, I will show you exactly what those rules are, and how you can take simple chords and turn them into real jazz comping: clear harmony, with a groove and a story.

Comping That Actually Works

So let’s take a simple medium Bb blues as our example,

and for now, I want you to think about this as if you’re playing in a duo — with a horn player, a vocalist, or another guitarist.

Because when you’re comping in that situation, you’re not just playing chords. You’re responsible for three of the main ingredients of the music: the tempo, the groove, and the harmony.

All three. At the same time.

And that’s exactly what these three rules are going to help you nail.

Use a bit of Ex 1 as B-roll for this transition (no sheet music).

Rule 1: Be Clear

The first rule is be clear.

And here that means: make it easy for everyone to hear what you’re playing, where the time is, and how the groove feels. Really, just everything that makes it comfortable to play with you.

Let’s start with time and rhythm.

There’s a great Peter Bernstein quote that nails this:

“Don’t be afraid of the one when you’re comping.”

What he means is you have to communicate the groove to the soloist and the audience, so stay grounded and play chords on beat 1 often.

That’s what makes it comfortable to solo over, and easy to follow both for the band and for the audience.

Now, when it comes to the notes, in a duo setting, being clear means starting with simple chords that have a bass note — shell voicings, like this.

These are easy 3-note versions of the chords; the root or bass note is on the lower string set, and the core part of the chord: 3rd and 7th, on the middle string set.

These voicings make it easy to smoothly move from one chord to the next:

Check out how Bb7 goes to Eb7 without skipping around the neck.

A trick I use to get the groove across is to split the shell voicing into two layers: bass and chord.

That’s how you get this:

Notice how that already creates a melody — similar to how a drum kit has a bass drum and a snare. Two layers make it easier to get the groove across.

Now a mistake I hear a lot is playing too many long sustained chords. Sustained chords make it hard to feel where the groove is — so avoid comping like this:

And aim for this instead:

Grab it with the link in the description.

So that’s the first rule — be clear. But knowing what to play is only half of it. The second rule is about something most people never even think about.

Rule 2: Be Connected

The second rule is be connected.

This is about how you function in the band — how the soloist and the rest of the rhythm section feel that you’re locking in with what they play.

Think about the great sidemen — Herbie Hancock behind Miles, Wynton Kelly behind Wes Montgomery. What makes them magic isn’t the chords they know. It’s how they listen and what they do with that.

And that‘s because the most important part of playing jazz chords isn’t the rhythm, the extensions, or the voice leading. It’s knowing when to play.

And that comes down to staying connected to three things:

What’s going on in the music
What the soloist is playing
What you can do with the harmony and rhythm

The first two are really about one thing: listening. You need to listen to the entire band and to the soloist, and let that guide what you play.

For example, if the feel is relaxed and open, don’t play a million syncopated chords on top of it:

That won’t fit, if the rest of the band sounds more like this:

And if the soloist is really busy and playing a lot, you don’t have to match that energy. It will sound and feel better if you give them room and pull back.

Just keep it basic.

Maybe even stop playing for a bit.

Because if you both play a lot at the same time, you’re going to get in the way of each other.

But being connected isn’t just about listening to others — it’s also about listening to yourself.

This is where a lot of beginners struggle.

What you don’t want is for every chord to sound like it has nothing to do with the one before it — like you’re starting a new song every four beats:

That connection between bars has to be there. And the best way to start building it is to think in phrases, not chords.

Start with the rhythm. Take a simple riff or rhythmic idea and repeat it throughout the song:

Soloists love this because it’s predictable and easy to play off. You can answer or react to it. Once you’ve got that, start developing and varying it — but keep the longer story running underneath.

Check out how I developed the riff from before:

And one more thing — practice this with a metronome. If your groove sounds good with a metronome, your groove sounds good. If it only sounds good with a backing track, maybe the backing track sounds good.

If you want to take everything in this video further, check out my Jazz Chord Craftsmanship Course — it’s built around real songs, and it takes you through exactly how to open up and expand simple voicings like these, build solid rhythm, and start adding melody to your comping.

Check it out: Jazz Chord Craftsmanship

The third rule is where it all starts to get really fun — because this is where you take everything you’ve built and start to make it your own, adding personality and energy.

Rule 3: Be Creative

The third rule is be creative.

And I want to start with something that might surprise you — because we all want to play big beautiful chord voicings.

That’s probably what you found interesting about jazz chords in the first place: all the colors, all the extensions, all that sound.

But when it comes to chords, if you check, you’d probably be amazed at how most of the players you admire are actually playing very basic and simple chords most of the time. The groove and the clarity is what matters most.

So a good place to start when it comes to being creative is to add some forward motion with some easy and basic passing chords. There’s no difficult theory or complicated formulas needed here — I’m really just playing something that’s a half step, one fret, away from the chord I want to go to, and using that to drive the progression forward with some nice energy.

So I’m approaching the Eb7 from above and the Bb7 from below — just sliding the chord into place. That is how you want to think about it, not like a diminished suspension or something like that.

Splitting The Chord (But A LOT Further)

Now remember earlier how I split the shell voicing into two layers — bass and chord? Check out how far you can take that:

You can probably tell that this is really the same principle — first, I’m just playing the basic chord, but then I’m a lot more open with what I play afterward.

So I’m not tied to the shell voicing anymore; I’m really just playing complete triad and chord voicings, with small fills in between.

So for this Bb7 I can just play the two-note shell, leave out the bass note, but then I can turn it into a triad, maybe change the melody a bit, turn it into a drop 2 or a variation of that.

And the same goes for the Eb7 — that’s the basic shell, then we have this as a triad, another triad, and then into drop 2 territory.

All of these are things you can use to play interesting chord fills in between. And you can also just move out of the position and open it up completely:

So now you’re transitioning up higher on the neck, playing a different Eb7, a fuller voicing — not just the shell but adding some colors, a complete drop 2 on top.

And since we’re playing a Bb blues, this is also a great place to add some of that blues flavor:

I’m using the same ideas I’d use in a solo — grace notes on the 3rd, short, simple phrases that stay around the triad. And once you clearly establish the chord, you don’t have to play complete voicings on every beat 1 of every bar. It can be much more open — even completely rootless if that fits.

Now let’s do something with the bass:

You can add small moments of bass movement, or go all the way to walking bass — that quarter note drive that moves the whole thing forward and sounds great:

If you want to dig into these examples and start adding some of those phrasing tricks to your chord playing, grab the free PDF. Click 👉Here

And that’s really what great comping comes down to — be clear, be connected, and be creative.

Joe Pass’s Chords

And if you want to take the chord voicings even further, I put together a video on a simple system for thinking about all those different voicings — it’s a lot easier than you might think, and it’s coming straight from how Joe Pass approaches chords.

Check it out!

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