Blue Bossa is often referred to as a beginner jazz tune, but as you quickly find out as you start your journey into jazz, even these so-called “beginner” tunes are not easy to sound great on.
Playing beautiful lines through the changes that connect and flow from one chord to the next and craft an overall story is a challenge no matter what the chord changes are.
And playing ideas filled with unique and interesting approaches goes even beyond that, primarily reserved for those who’ve spent years exploring the jazz language.
Today we’ll study a player who exhibits this next-level skill – the one and only Dexter Gordon.
When you think big, lush, classic tenor saxophone sounds, Dexter Gordon has to be near the top of your list. But it’s not just his brilliant sound or laid-back in-the-pocket swing feel that make him great…
It’s the unique improvisational tactics within his jazz lines.
In this lesson, we’ll look at 12 Dexter Gordon lines on his solo over Blue Bossa, but these aren’t just any lines – they’re lines that have something noteworthy about them, something different…something you’d never think of…
Blue Bossa: The Chord Changes
Take a listen to Dexter playing over Blue Bossa and notice how effortless everything seems…
Now before we getting into Dexter Gordon’s solo and all the great jazz lines he plays, let’s first talk about the chord changes…
In terms of learning the changes, a great place to start with is The Form.
Go ahead and listen to the first 8 bars of the form and try to hear if it’s operating in a major or minor key…
Can you tell?
Now listen to the next 8 bars of the tune and try to do the same – does it sound like it’s in a major key or a minor key, or both?
Are you able to hear it?
If you’ve spent some time training your ear, then you should be able to easily hear when the tune is in a major tonality, and when it’s in minor, but let’s talk about this for a second…
If you listen closely to the first 8 bars, the A Section of the tune, you should be able to hear that it’s in a minor key…pay attention to the minor tonality and how the changes move from the i to the iv of the key, followed by the ii and V7.
And in the second 8 bars, the B Section, hear how it starts with a ii V7 I in a major key, Db Major, but then quickly shifts back to the ii V7 of the minor key?
Being able to take a jazz standard like this and hear whether the big sections of the tune are operating in a major or minor tonality is crucial to understanding the story behind the tune, something we teach you how to do in our new course,Jazz Theory Unlocked.
And If you can hear these 2 sections, then you can hear the whole tune because the whole form only uses these 2 pieces.
That’s right, all you do is play the A Section, followed by the B Section, and that’s the entire tune, ABAB…
But remember…just because the changes might seem simple doesn’t mean that playing beautiful melodic lines is ever easy.
12 Dexter Gordon Lines on Blue Bossa
Okay, now that you have the form of the tune under your belt, let’s get into Dexter’s solo on this tune…
In Blue Bossa, because of the chord changes to the tune, the main things you’ll find are lines that fit over:
C minor (functioning as a tonic)
F- (the minor chord functioning as the iv in C minor)
Part of a minor ii V i (in C minor)
Part of a Major ii V I (in Db major)
These are the main types. And then, keep in mind that chords might be inserted and implied by the soloist to connect these main pieces, so always be on the lookout for these as you transcribe as well.
Alright, you know the form, and you know the types of lines we’ll find…
Next In this lesson we’re going to explore 12 different Dexter Gordon lines that illustrate all sorts of interesting and unique approaches to these seemingly simple chord changes.
In the process, you’ll discover all the things you would never think of playing on Blue Bossa…
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