Blues Changes Using Substitutions
When you play a Blues with a Jazz band, there are likely to be substitutions used, particularly over the last four bars of the form. Here is a standard Jazz Blues type of solo. Notice the use of diminished and minor 7th chords along with the dominants.
This one is a more complex Bebop style Blues. It contains many more chords and a different style of phrasing. The Blues is likely to be used at any jam session, so learn these variations well and it will help you in a variety of musical situations.
Once you have some technique on your instrument, your musical development will come from lots of playing as well as listening to great players and absorbing their influences. Don't just listen to gurtarists# listen to singers and horn players. When you are playing music, every note should help communicate the meaning and emotion of the composition. The great tenor saxophonist Lester Young once said he would never improvise on a song he didn't know the words to. Listen to singers and the way they express the lyrics and the melody. When you hear a great Jazz player, it is almost as if they are singing through their instrument.
The following solo was written and performed by Chris Soole on Tenor sax. It uses a vocal style and many expressions which are not written on the page. Listen carefully to the recording and try to get all these expressions into your playing. The next step is to add these expressions to your own improvising.
Here is a Jam-along version of Angelica (based on the Jazz standard Angel Eyes) for you to practice with. Once you have learned the solo, try playing it with this track from memory. Then try improvising over the changes.
