Of all the standards in the jazz repertoire, there are certain tunes that seem to play themselves. Songs where you can simply outline a few chord tones, follow the changes, and your solo starts to fall into place…
And then there are those tunes where you don’t get any help at all. Progressions where all of the musical responsibility falls on you…
Ironically, these tunes are the ones we typically think of as “easy.”
I’m talking about those simple tunes composed of blocks of fundamental chords where it’s up to the soloist to create the melodic momentum, imply harmonic resolutions, and establish a rhythmic feel.
One of these tunes is the familiar standard Bye Bye Blackbird, a slow burn in F major that can quickly expose the weak spots in your playing…
It’s precisely why the most iconic recordings of this standard have been done by some of the very best improvisers – Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or Oscar Peterson.
The challenge for the improviser here lies in solving the problem ofcreating musical shape and direction without the aid of moving chords…intuitively making music in real time, without getting bogged down in theory.
As we’ll uncover below, this involves a learning or practice process that incorporates both our intuitive sense of listening, and a more analytical or technical side that can add new skills and techniques tod our creative arsenal
And in this two-part series for Pro Members we’re going to apply this process to a handful of solo excerpts from the best players – learning exactly how they tell their musical story.
The Tune: Bye Bye Blackbird
Let’s begin by taking a closer look at the nuts and bolts of the tune…
Bye Bye Blackbird, written by Ray Henderson in 1926, is commonly played in the key of F major.
The 32 bar form features a simple diatonic melody over a progression that moves between the tonic and the ii minor…
Here is a common approach to the opening 16 bars:
And the next 16 measures:
Like many early songs or show tunes that we play today, the original progression has gone through numerous interpretations and adaptations over the years
You might compare it to Rhythm Changes or even the blues…simple source material that has evolved beyond its original conception through various players and styles.
This evolution is why it’s sometimes hard to write down a “definitive set” of chord changes for many tunes – the form and important harmonic points are established, but the journey from point A to B can often vary.
And this is the beauty of improvising within a living repertoire of music – there are possibilities and unknowns, rather than strict rules that have to be repeated verbatim every time.
For example, in the opening to Bye Bye Blackbird the main harmonic points of the tune move from the initial I chord, transition to a moment in the ii minor, and resolve back to I…
And between these points there are a number of ways to connect the dots.
Harmonic variations
In the recordings and solo excerpts below you’ll hear a number of different approaches to this same basic progression. Here are a few examples you might encounter:
Listen to Ben Webster and Ray Brown playing the melody (in key of G):
Rather than staying on the I chord, Ray Brown implies some common harmonic tactics (I-IV-iii-VI-ii-V to I) to create motion on an otherwise static chord.
In the second half of the tune it’s also common to use a descending sequence of dominant chords moving by half-step from I to VI, resolving to ii – another way to get from the I chord to the arrival of the ii chord in that 5th bar.
Listen to how Red Garland utilizes this movement in his solo:
In other recordings you’ll hear the diminished chord in bar 6 replaced with a minor ii-V resolving to the ii chord, in some a iiiø at the start of the second half, and various other V7 chords or substitutions included to create smooth harmonic movement – any and all of these can be implied as you interpret the progression.
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