You need to play the chords and you also need to improvise and play some great Riffs when you are comping. This video builds a set of Autumn Leaves Chords that connects different Jazz Chords to give you something you can use to improvise with.
A lot of the time when you practice you think you need to learn completely new things, but often it is much more efficient to make new connections and find better ways to use what you already know. And become much more flexible if you can mix the different things you know like drop2 and shell-voicings for example. So That is also the way I am going to build the material in this lesson.
I am using Autumn Leaves as an example because that is a very common standard and covers a lot of ground with chords, so it is a perfect example for teaching jazz chords in a guitar lesson.
Autumn Leaves Chords – Basic Shell-Voicings
Let’s start with a set of basic Shell-voicings for the first 8 bars of Autumn Leaves. If you want more information on Shell-voicings then check out this very old lesson (in fact my first YouTube Lesson) The basic construction of a Shell-voicing is either 1 7 3 (as on Cm7) or 1 3 7 (as on F7).
The first place to go is to take the shells and leave out the root, so the lowest note:
Rootless Shell-voicings or Guide-Tone Chords
In this lesson, you don’t need to use the root, and you also want to be more flexible to add more things on top of the voicings so let’s take away the bass note:
Adding notes to create 3-note chords
Now we have two-note voicings that are easy to add extra material to. The first step is to add the notes on the next string, so the B string.
That is shown here below:
Keep in mind that I am trying to be practical and I am only adding notes that I think are useful and easy to play. You should do the same and it may differ from what I do. Keep it practical!
A Comping Example using the 2 and 3-note jazz chords
An example of what you now can do already with this simple set of voicings is shown below:
From Triads to Drop 2 Voicings
Notice that the 3-note voicings are often Triads and you can add the notes on the high E string as well and that will mostly give us Drop 2 voicings (Check out the explanation of Drop voicings here)
Adding the extra notes gives you these voicings:
Combining all the voicings
Putting this to use on the song would give you an example like this:
Combining and Embellishing Chords on a Blues
If you want to check out a more in-depth application of this on a 12-bar Blues in Bb then have a look at this WebStore lesson:
You can also download the PDF of my examples here:
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video or send me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.
To me Jim Hall is like the reluctant super hero of Jazz Guitar. In this video I am going to show you some of the ideas he uses on the song Autumn Leaves, both in terms of changing the chords, using poly rhythms and melodies. In my opinion this solo is an understated gold mine of musical ideas.
The devices that Jim Hall are things that you can incorporate into your playing and use to re-interpret the harmony of songs while you are playing them or add more rhythmical variation to your solos. In that way this solo is a really clear take on how you can do a lot with a very simple and famous jazz standard.
Autumn Leaves Reharmonization
There are a few things that Jim Hall and Ron Carter do with the Harmony of the song that really deserves a mention. After that I will break down a few phrases and go over the rhythm and harmony used for them.
The chord progression for Autumn Leaves is this:
The chords are interpreted quite freely through out, but a great reharmonization is used in the 1st solo chorus where the Gm6 is exchanged for a Db7(#11) both at the end of the 1st and the 2nd half of the song.
When you have the root in the melody on a chord you can always do this substitution, and here it works really well at the end of the form since the first chord of the song is a Cm7 so it works as a tritone dom7th.
Another thing that Jim Hall does very often is to substitute the Aø for Eb7#11 this happens mostly in these two places but he also does it in the other minor II V’s. (add transcriptions and audio?)
Example 1 – Tonic Minor and dotted 3 note groupings
The first phrase here is a clear example of how Jim Hall uses melodic minor on tonic chords. Something that I get
The line is a simple melodic minor scale sequence, but the first note is the major 6th. The other thing that really makes this line jump out is the rhythm. A quarter note followed by two 16th notes.
The last bar transitions into a G7 with the B note being emphasized and the line goes on to the next part of the form using a Bdim arpeggio.
This sequence is a great way to get into this type of phrasing and you can experiment with adding it to your own playing making some lines with it, It is also the same rhythm Kurt Rosenwinkel uses a lot with triads
An example of a II V I phrase that uses this could be this:
Example 2 – Triplet motif
Jim Hall works through motifs in many places in the solo. The previous example was also using a scale sequence as a motif.
This example uses triplets and quickly develops a 3 note motif across 4 bars.
The motif is quite simple but it is still impressive that he manages to move it around like this over the form. Th triplet rhythm here is almost a 4 note grouping but not really. Probably because the focus on the melody more than the rhythm.
Example 3 – Reharmonizing in the solo
This phrase is using the same rhythm as in example one, and what Jim Hall is playing can be interpreted as two different sounds.
The phrase is shifting the same melodic motif down in half steps. The motif itself can either be whole tone or melodic minor. It is found in both. The pattern is the same throught the phrase. He plays the phrase 3 times for the Eb7, twice for D and three times for Db7 adding a small tag to end it.
The first part spells out an Eb7(#11) sound, the second a D7(#11) and the 3rd a G7alt or Db7(#11).
If you want to play better solos you need to be better at coming up with strong and more interesting melodies. I hope you can use some of these techniques to achieve that.
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How you add extensions and color to the Autumn Leaves Chords is a big part of the sound of Jazz Harmony. In this video I am going to go over 5 different sets of chords ranging from a very basic Drop2 set via a various extensions and alterations to a spacy modal harmonization.
When checking out the possiblities for adding and changing the chords it is practical to use a chord progression that you already know and have in your ears. In that way it doesn’t become only theory but you can also relate it to a song you already know.
In the lesson I am going to use the first 8 bars of Autumn Leaves and I have 5 different variations of the chords on this song that you can use to explore what is possible and of course also directly start using in your playing.
#1 The Song and the Drop2 voicings
When you are checking out a jazz standard like Autumn Leaves it is a good idea to just go through it with a basic drop2 voicings. The Drop2 voicings are anyway very useful for any type of jazz comping so you should check them out. You can check out the How To Play Jazz Chords Study guide
The voicing set using only drop2 chords and no extensions is shown here below in Example 1.
#2 Adding Basic Extensions
Now that we have a basic set of chords to work with we can start adding extensions to them.
The basic rule is that you can work with when adding extensions to chord voicings are:
The 9th replaces the root
The 13th replaces the 5th
With these two concepts it is easy to add an extension to a chord and putting it in there won’t change the core part of the chord which is covered with the 3rd and 7th.
In the first version I used a higher Bbmaj7 voicing. Mainly to avoid having a b9 interval in the chord which is not so great for that chord. Now that I am exchanging the root for the 9th the b9 (between A and Bb) is gone and I can use the lower version of the Bb and Eb chords.
On the Am7(b5) we can’t really us a 9th since the Bb is not the greatest extension on an Aø chord. In this case I am using an 11th and I am using it instead of the 3rd. This can work sometimes, but won’t always workout for a lot of chords. In this case the b5 combined with the 11th will still make it a clear m7b5 sound.
#3 Adding several extensions to the chords
The next logical step is to start using two extensions for each chord. Which is what I am doing here below.
The Cm7 is turned into a Cm7(9,11). The 9th is replacing the root, and the 11th is replacing the 5th. In a minor chord the 13th doesn’t work well with this m7 chord, but using the note below the 5th is a viable option.
The F7 is turned into a 13b9 which is from the diminished scale.
The Bb chord uses the rules above to add a 9th and a 13th. The Ebmaj7 stays with a 9th.
On the Aø I have now added a 9th. The 9th is implying another scale on this chord. The first choice would be G minor, but now with the B in there it is coming out of C melodic minor.
The D7 is analtered chord adding b9 and alterering the 5th to a b5.
On the tonic chord I am using a GmMaj7 with an added maj6th which really drives home the melodic minor sound.
The final G7 is coming out of the altered scale and is derived from the original G7 voicing.
#4 Autumn Leaves Chords: Other Sounds and voicing types
Sometimes another way of adding different sounds is not to add more notes to the chords but instead to opt for certain voicings that have a characteristic sound. The last two examples use this quite a lot.
The first Cm7 is voiced as an Bb triad over an Eb which has a distinct sound with the second interval between the Eb and the F.
On the Bbmaj7 the sounds is tweaked a bit by adding a #11 instead of the 5th. For the rest the 9th is added.
The Aø the sound is again A Locrian nat. 2 (or C mel minor) The voicing has a 9th instead of the root and an 11th instead of the 3rd. You could see it as an Ebmaj7(#5)
The D7(#9b5) is constructed similar to the rules above.
Another example of the GmMaj7 where I am using a Drop2 voicng but now using the minor 2nd between the root and the maj7th to color the sound.
With the G7alt voicing it is clear how this sound is really closely related to it’s tri tone substitute: Db7.
#5 The Spacy Herbie Hancock meets Brad Mehldau Jam
The final version is more a modal treatment of the chords. The focus is completely changed here. When harmonizing in a modal way the priority is not helping the chord to function but just to give it an interesting sound.
The Cm7 is now with an added 13th which really ruins its function: To delay the A (the 13th that is now in the chord). The F7 altered that follows compensates the harmonic movement with altereations.
On The Bbmaj7 chord is an incomplete chord, which here means that it has no 3rd. It does contain the 7th, 13th and #11. The Ebmaj7 is left untouched to change up the pace a bit.
The cadence to Gm is reharmonized with a tritone substitution to Eb7 D7 instead of Aø D7. The two dominants are then embellished by adding the II chord as well: Bbm7 Eb7 Aø D7. To add even more sounds I have turned the Aø into a Am7(9) which is essentially borrowing it from G Major rather than G minor.
With the tonic chord I also added another more colorful sound: Gm6(9#11) this chord is coming out of D harmonic minor and is really just meant as a surprising sound on the Gm chord.
The final G7 is a G7(#9) which is using a Bb triad over a B. This is coming out of the diminished scale.
The Chord Diagrams
If you prefer to check out the chord diagrams you can reference this chart:
18:57 Do you have a great approach for working with chord extensions?
Learn, Listen and Experiment
The best way to integrate these things is to try and play through them and relate them Autumn Leaves. But also try to incorporate them into your own playing and combine it with what you play already. It is always good to keep experimenting.
Finding more ideas on Autumn Leaves
If you are looking for more ideas and examples on Autumn Leaves then check out this WebStore lesson with 5 choruses of examples:
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video or send me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.
