I guess there are two things you need to study if you want to learn Jazz Guitar: Rhythm Changes & Joe Pass! So it makes sense to check out a Rhythm Changes Joe Pass Solo! To most people, and certainly if you ask Mike Stern and John Scofield, Joe Pass is where they went to learn Jazz Guitar.
His technique and swinging bebop phrasing is a bible of information for learning to play jazz, both in terms of the notes and melodies but also in terms of phrasing and swing feel. In a similar way Rhythm Changes is where you really start learning many of the things you need to know in order to play Jazz: Improvising over chord changes, playing 8th note lines, turnarounds. In this video
I am taking a look at a few phrases from Joe Pass’ solo on Oleo off the Duo album “Chops” where he plays with Danish bass-player: Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen.
Hope you like it!
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It can be difficult to have a large vocabulary of lines when improvising over fast moving chord progressions like Rhythm Changes. One way to access some more ideas is to solo over substitute changes and then get some more options by thinking the substituted chords on top of the normal turnaround.
In this video I will go over 5 variations and show how you can use those to generate new ideas for your solos.
The Basic Turnaround in Rhythm Changes
The basic turnaround in Rhythm Changes is usually a I VI II V. In the key of Bb major that would be something like this: Bbmaj7 G7 Cm7 F7
A line on this turnaround could be:
The line is using a Bb6 (or Gm7) arpeggio on the Bb chord and continues with a G7 arpeggio. The melodic idea is using that the Bb can be moved to B and for the rest stay the same. On the Cm7 it’s a descending scale run targetting the A on the F7. The F7 line is using the F7 arpeggio that resolves to D.
A few Dom7th Substitutions – Tritones and Diminished Chords
Two common devices are substitution are using tritone substitutes and diminished chords.
In this example a Bdim replaces the G7 which is the chord on the 3rd of a G7(b9). The F7 is repalced with a B7.
The line is first a descending Bbmaj7 arpeggio. On the Bdim it is an Abdim triad.The Cm7 the melody is a Cm cliche melody built around a Cm minor triad with an added 9. The final B7 line is a B major triad.
Tritone substitutes and altered dominants
On the Bbmaj7 it is also possible to use the arpeggio from the 3rd which is a Dm7 arpeggio. In this example the first part of the line is a descending Dm7 arpeggio. A tritone substitution replaces the G7 with a Db7. The melody is a descending 1st inversion Db7 arpeggio. On the Cm7 the arpeggio used is a descending Ebmaj7 arpeggio. In this way the first part of this line is an ascending series of descending arpeggios. The F7alt line is a scale run in the F altered scale.
Reharmonizing beyond the original chords
Of course with a fast moving progression like the Rhythm changes it is possible to also use some chromatic passing chords. In this case the idea is to use a chromatic passing chord between the 1st and 3rd chord. It seems obvious that a Dbm7 would work well as a passing chord between Dm7 and Cm7.
In the line I am connecting the chords across octaves to disguise the way that the arpeggios are actually moving down in half steps.
Making the tonic a secondary dominant
A great variation is to get a feel of suspension in the turnaround is to replace the tonic chord with a dom7th chord. This takes a way the feeling of starting home and replacing it with an altered dominant. The dominant is making sure that the line is moving.
The melody here is first a stack of 4ths on the D7 altered. This is followed by a Bdim arpeggio on the G7. On the Cm7 the line is based around a Cm triad. It is in fact an inversion of the Cm line in the first example. The F7 line is a familiar F7alt/Gbm cliché
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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.
Rhythm Changes and The Blues are probably the two most important chord progressions that you need to master if you want to play jazz guitar and especially bebop.
This lesson is going to go over 3 different approaches to play over the rhythm changes. Each one demostrated with a 4 bar lick and some exercises.
Rhythm changes in Bebop
Since Bebop the chord progression from I got Rhythm has been used countless times for great bebop themes such as Anthropology, Oleo, Dexterity, Moose the Mooche etc. In fact about 30 percent of all Charlie Parker compositions are on Rhythm Changes
Most of the time when you are soloing over a rhythm changes form you find yourself improvising over this turnaround in the key of Bb major.
Of course there are many variations available on this turnaround, but the essence of it will probably always be this progression.
Using several approaches to a solo
In most good solos you will find that during the solo different things are being emphasized, so the approach in the solo changes. In fact I think that most (good) solos on Rhythm Changes will probably contain parts that use each of the ideas that I go over in this lesson.
Room for rhythm – The Simplified Chord Progression
The first concept is to reduce the amount of chords that are played in the solo. This means that instead of playing all 4 chords of the turnaround in example 1 above. The focus is now on the two main chords in that progression: Bb and F7, the tonic and the dominant.
Both of these chords are diatonic to the Bb major scale as shown in example 3.
One good exercise to get used to hearing these two chords and the scale over the changes is to do the Barry Harris scale exercise shown here below:
Another very important exercise is to play the chords in time over the progression as shown in example 6:
The example line that I played using this approach is shown here:
The first line on the Bbmaj7 is a line consisiting only of Bb maj7 arpeggio notes. On the F7 the line is first a descending scale run from Eb to Bb and then a small melody with the notes of an A dim triad.
The 2nd Bbmaj bar is using a Bb6 or Bb major pentatonic melody that with a string skip moves to an Eb major triad over the F7. The line concludes with inserting a chromatic passing note between D and C.
Advantages to this type of thinking
For this type of playing you get a lot more freedom to think about the rhythm since you don’t have to catch as many changes. In fact this approach is also very close to what you will hear in older swing recordings on Rhythm Changes.
Nailing all the changes
This way of playing over the chords actually makes the progression as difficult to play as Giant Steps from a technical perspective.
Very often if you analyze Charlie Parker solos on rhythm changes you will hear him play simpler phrases in the first two bars and really spell out the changes in the next two bars.
Finding the scales
In order to play over the chords we can use the Bb major scale on the Bbmaj7 and the Cm7 chord.
On the G7 the scale that is most appropriate is a C minor harmonic or G mixolydianb9,b13
We can do the same thing with the F7 as shown in example 9:
Setting the target notes and connecting the dots
The concept behind the lines in this example is to use target notes, and then make lines that move towards that line. Something I have also worked on i other lessons.
An example of a set of target notes that you can fill in with short melodies.
The line example that I am playing is using this technique to connect the lines. To build a vocabulary for this type of playing you need to work on having simple 4 note phrases that you can use to aim for the target notes in the next chord.
You can always use the Blues
Of course since the Rhythm Changes is such an important part of jazz it also is connected to the Blues, and using blues phrases on a rhythm changes progression is very common.
The approach that I am using in the line below is mixing some blues phrases with more some F7 phrases. The blues phrases are using a more mixolydian sound than an actual minor pentatonic sound. You can use the Bbm pentatonic as well of course, but the more major sounding blues phrases are a little more common, which is of course also the case for jazz in general.
The phrase on the first Bb chord is a D dim arpeggio. The line on the Cm7 F7 bar could be seen as both a F7 line or a Bb major line.
The 2nd Bb bar has a clear Bb7 line with a leading note to the 3rd. This also really evokes the blues sound.
The last bar has a Cm7 line to take us back to the chords before the progression would go to the 4th degree.
Conclusions
As I already mentioned it is important to realize that you should vary your approach during the solo. This is by the way true for all solos. I hope you can use the examples as inspiration to widen your vocabulary and the array of sounds you have available over Rhythm Changes.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics or how I can improve the lessons 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.
