Bb Jazz Blues Soloing Etude

Learning how to play jazz guitar means learning how to solo over the Jazz Blues form. Every great jazz guitarist has worked their way through this 12-bar form, and many such as Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell and Pat Metheny have even written classic jazz blues heads that are now a part of the must-know repertoire for current jazz guitarists. While many of us know that learning to solo over Jazz Blues tunes is an important skill to have, we are often stuck with knowing where to start, or we suffer from having too much information at our hands and cant gure out what is the right pan of attack for us in the woodshed. In todays lesson, well be analyzing a jazz blues solo in the key of Bb, learning to play it on guitar, and pulling individual licks and phrases out for further practice. By learning a jazz blues solo, understanding the concepts behind the licks, and taking individual phrases out of context and into other parts of your playing, youll develop a well-rounded approach to studying and playing the jazz blues form in your own subsequent soloing endeavors.

Analysis: First Four-Bars

The rst four bars are fairly straight forward as I was working off of a melodic pattern, repeating it across the changes in the rst 3 bars. The pattern, which you can see in the rst bar, is build by playing down the minor pentatonic scale of the underlying chord, in this case Bb, and then mixing in the major 3rd interval in the second to last note, D in this case. That lick, which uses the intervals b7-5-4-b3-3-R, is then repeated over the Eb7 chord, transposed up a 4th to keep the same intervals over the new chord, before returning to its original form and chord in bar 3. This type of playing, using one lick and passing it around different chords in a progression, is a great way to keep a melodic thread going in your solos, while outlining the changes at the same time. Once youve learned this lick over the rst 3 bars of the Bb blues, try coming up with your own melodic phrase over the Bb7 chord, then transpose it to t the Eb7 chord, before bringing it back to Bb7 in bar 3. It is tougher to do than it seems, but well worth the time spent in the practice room in order to get this approach down in your playing. The lick in bar 4 uses a very common chord substitution. Here, I am using a B minor pentatonic scale to imply a Bm7-E7 chord progression, which I then resolve down a half-step to the Eb7 chord that falls on the next bar in the progression. Using a #IV chord, E7 in this key, over bar 4 of a jazz blues chord progression is a great way to add tension to your lines that you then resolve into the IV chord in bar 5 of the tune. After learning this lick, try putting on a jazz blues backing track in Bb and begin to improvise using E7 in bar 4, using the B minor pentatonic scale as a start and then branching out to other scales and arpeggios from there. It takes a bit of time to get used to working with those types of subs and tensions, but once you get them in your ears and under your ngers, they will take your playing to a whole new level.

Analysis: Second Four-Bars

The second four bars starts to shift more into the realm of arpeggios in order to outline the given chord progression. After using a short, Dominant Bebop Scale lick in the rst bar, over Eb7, I switched gears and began using arpeggios with different rhythms over the next three bars of the tune. The Edim7 and Bb7 both use the root-position arpeggios to build the ascending and descending line over both of those bars, while the G7b9 features a 3 to 9 Arpeggio Lick that uses Bdim7 to outline G7b9. This is a common jazz guitar technique, using a dim7 arpeggio from the 3rd of a 7th chord to produce a 7b9 sound. In this case, Bdim7 (B D F Ab) produces the intervals 3, 5 b7, b9 over a G7 chord. After youve learned this solo, try improvising over a Bb jazz blues chord progression and playing Bdim7 in bar 8 over the G7b9 chord in order to bring this concept further into your own improvisations.

Analysis: Third Four-Bars

The last four-bars takes a turn into the Bebop lick world as I used common Bebop techniques and phrases to outline each chord in this part of the tune. The rst bar, Cm7, uses a common Bebop lick that is worth taking out of this phrase and practicing on its own in order to take further into your jazz guitar soloing. The crux of that phrase is the Bb to A movement, implying Cm7-F7 as Bb is the b7 of Cm7 which moves by half-step to the 3rd, A, of the implied F7 chord. As well, the last 3 notes, and rst note of the next bar, approach the F, root note, with a double-enclosure, Gb-Eb-E-F, which highlights the underlying change in harmony. The last two-bars are also worth taking a closer look at. Here, I used a Bb triad over Bb7, then moved the root note up chromatically to play Bdim over G7b9, which we saw earlier, and nally moving up by one more half step to play Cm7 over Cm7. Again, I resolved the b7, Bb, of Cm7 down to the A, 3rd, of F7 to voice lead that iim7-V7 chord progression. Soloing over the last four-bars of a jazz blues progression is often the hardest part of the tune, so try this lick out as written, then begin to experiment with it in order to develop a few variations of this phrase that you can use over subsequent choruses in your solos.

Bb Jazz Blues Soloing Etude

After checking out and learning each four-bar phrase on its own, you can now link them all together and play the entire chorus as a whole. Start slowing and work with a metronome when learning the entire chorus. As well, make sure to memorize it as that will make it easier to work with in the woodshed, as well as take into your soloing when it comes time to bring these ideas into a practical, musical situation. Click to hear the audio example for this Bb Jazz Blues Soloing Etude.

How to Practice the Bb Blues Soloing Study

After youve learned this Bb Jazz Blues single-note solo as written, at a slow or medium tempo, youll want to expand it further in your practice routine in order to get the most out of each lick, phrase and rhythm in this etude. Here are a few ways that you can break down and expand on this chord solo further in your jazz guitar practice routine. Practice this solo at various tempos from 50 to 200 bpms if possible. Extract one or more licks from each 4-bar phrase and practice them at various tempos, and in all 12 keys if possible. Sing the root note of each underlying chord while playing the written single-note solo on the guitar. Improvise with this single-note solo by adding in new notes and licks, changing the rhythms and taking notes out of the solo in order to take it off the page and begin to make this solo your own. Write your own single-note solo using licks and phrases from this, and other jazz guitar solos youve learned, in order to develop the skills needed to improvise in this style on the spot. If you have a question or comment on this jazz guitar solo study, head on over to the Matt Warnock Facebook Page and post a question on my wall. I am glad to help out and answer any questions you may have on this, or any other, jazz guitar topic.