Tag Archives: tenor madness blues

Sonny Rollins – Things You Need To Know About Jazz Blues

Sonny Rollins needs no introduction in Jazz. He is one of the most influential Tenor players that we have with an amazing and long career. In this Sonny Rollins lesson, I am taking a look at some of the great phrases from the Jazz Blues Tenor Madness. We can learn a lot from his very musical and natural approach to both blues and reharmonization in this solo.

When I was studying at the conservatory we referred to Tenor Madness as the dictionary, because it has so many important lines and chord changes that you want to know for your own Jazz Blues vocabulary.

Check out my analysis of John Coltrane’s solo on Take The Coltrane. The beginning of Modal playing: This Is Not Bebop, But It Is A Great Coltrane Solo

Content:

0:00 Intro – Sonny Rollins

0:25 Tenor Madness with John Coltrane

0:56 Example #1

1:14 Changing the Chords – Intuitive and Decision driven

2:10 Is it Chi-Chi changes?

2:44 Altered but not altered scale

3:19 A Motif across the Chords

4:24 Eaxmple #1 Slow

4:45 Reharmonizing Bars 5-9

5:07 Example #2

5:30 A Musical Reharmonization with two voices

6:50 Example #2 Slow

6:59 Example #3

7:09 Parallel Minor Chords (Like Parker and Coltrane)

8:04 Is that a Wrong note, Mr Rollins?

8:55 Example #3 slow

9:10 Blues phrases that are not Dominant chords

10:09 Example #4

10:14 Bb Triad + Chromaticism

11:44 Example #4 Slow

11:56 Examples #5 and #6

12:10 Using Bbmaj7 on the Blues

12:36 Examples #5 and #6 – Slow

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