Now that you have heard about chords and harmony, it's time to cover the blues, a basic ingredient in jazz. Jazz grew from the blues and still relies on the blues as a standard form and song style. The blues is just plain cool. Everybody's got the blues at one point or another. Jazz folks have the blues pretty often. In addition to the standard American Songbook tunes that everyone knows and loves, the blues remains a very important form for jazz players. Every self-respecting jazz composer has written a blues tune or two or three or four. The blues exists in two varieties: minor blues and major blues. Each blues song is exactly twelve bars (or measures) long. Blues songs follow a strict repeating harmonic formula, so it's easy to transpose them into any key, and in general, they are easy to learn to play.

12-Bar Major Blues

The 12-bar blues is taken from the traditional blues you might hear in the blues clubs or by someone like B. B. King, but jazz players have adapted the harmony just a little bit. Take a look at what a traditional 12-bar blues piece looks like in FIGURE 13.8.

The last five measures are where you see a change. Instead of the traditional blues V–VI–I ending, the standard jazz ii–V–I progression is thrown in. Preceding that ii chord, a V/ii is thrown in to set up the progression and make life a bit more interesting for the improviser.

Notice how the Roman numeral harmony, chord symbols, and guitar chords are given for each example. This way, you can transpose the chords into any key. The B blues is definitely one of the most used, standard jazz/blues keys, so it's a very good one to start with.

Here's a list of jazz tunes that are based on the 12-bar major blues:

• “Now's the Time” (Charlie Parker)

• “Blue Monk” (Thelonious Monk)

• “Straight, No Chaser” (Thelonious Monk)

• “Billie's Bounce” (Charlie Parker)

• “Tenor Madness” (Sonny Rollins)

There are a million more, but this will get you started. Make sure to transpose them into different keys. If you don't play harmonies, learn some melodies (all the jazz blues have heads, so learn those).

12-Bar Minor Blues

The final variant of jazz blues is called the minor blues, and you guessed it, it's in a minor key. Take a look at the minor blues in FIGURE 13.10.

You see some basic harmony, such as i and iv chords, the expected dominant V chord that you need for minor keys. The chord that is slightly off is the VI chord that precedes the V chord in bar nine. That's simply what makes a minor blues work the way it does; it is a definite difference between the major and the minor.

Also, you'll notice a turnaround in the last bar of a Dmin75, G7. This turnaround sets the i chord up in bar one so the tune can loop around. The progression is the minor version of a ii–V–i progression, as you learned earlier in the chapter.

That wraps up your general overview of jazz harmony. Sure, there's more to look at, but this will get you more than started. If you have a real interest in jazz, there are some great books that deal with jazz harmony, or consult a good jazz teacher. Either way you look at it, nothing beats listening to as much music as humanly possible.

ETUDES

ETUDE 13.1 Etude One

ETUDE 13.2 Etude Two

ETUDE 13.3 Etude Three

ETUDE 13-4 Etude Four

ETUDE 247.5 Etude Five