There was a reason I simplified the chord chart of ‘Blue Skies’, which was practice material for Lesson #3. I wanted to start this next lesson by considering the Augmented triad, before moving on to altered Dominant 7 chords.
Early Jazz favours the Harmonic Minor scale, rather than Dorian mode or the Melodic Minor scale. The Harmonic Minor scale provides an opportunity to exploit the Augmented triad in a variety of ways and is the building block for Altered Dominant 7s. Hopefully, this becomes self-explanatory: as you play through the following.
So, faced with this E+ chord in ‘Blue Skies’ we have options to choose from: e.g. play the chord tones or add in a couple of extras from the scale, implying a more complex chord serving the same harmonic function:
It’s often said that The Blues brings together elements of both major and minor keys, e.g. the flattened blues 3rd inflection of a major triad. That tendency to conflate major and minor is sometimes extended to unexpected chord changes in Early Jazz, as in the following example from ‘Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?’.
With greater chordal complexity, and/or faster speed of chord changes, you might find it necessary and helpful to be more modest in your additions to the chord tones, or even avoid additions altogether, as suggested below for these altered dominants. Just hitting that C natural does most of the work.
But don’t be afraid to push your luck on occasions, as in this small variation emphasising minor-ness even more.
Far better to look for these opportunities to nuance your improvised melodies, rather than just flailing around on parent scales, regardless of each chord’s function relative to what went before and what is to come.
Well, that ends this short series of lessons on Improvising Early Jazz.
Now, go back to Lesson #1 and start again, transposing all the examples to keys other than C major and A minor. The most common standard keys in Early Jazz are concert F, Bb, Eb, C, Ab, Dm & Gm (in descending order).
For Bb instruments that’s: G, C, F, D, Bb, Em & Am.
For Eb instruments that’s: D, G, C, A, F, Bm & Em.
Good luck!
Professor David Burnand
Brighton 2022
P.S. I’m considering an audio version of these lessons, so that you have accompaniment to work with. Let me know if that might be useful.
Musings on Music and More 