Minor jazz-blues

This month John Wheatcroft majors in minor, as he focuses on one of the most common progressions in all of jazz, the minor blues.

There is much debate as to why the combination of notes we call major in music is generally considered to be happy, while the minor equivalent conveys a feeling of sadness. I’m inclined to concur with Leonard Bernstein’s assertion that this is related to the minor 3rd’s distant location in the harmonic series, rather than the gold, silver and bronze locations (discounting octaves) afforded to root, perfect 5th and major 3rd, the notes we require to create a major triad. All this conjecture can be left for another day, if we all agree to the basic assumption that major equals bright and happy, while minor is dark and sad.

Of course, dark and sad might be exactly what we’re looking for when attempting to convey the brooding emotion related to the blues, so while the major blues balances sweet and sour by juxtaposing major harmony with minor melody, the minor blues allows us to relish and wallow in minor melody against minor harmony to great melancholic effect.

Of course, it’s not just about the tonic I chord. Just as in major, there is a complete 12-bar sequence to consider, with some common alterations and embellishments and that’s what we’re looking at here.

Compositions like Minor Swing (Django Reinhardt), Equinox (John Coltrane), Footprints (Wayne Shorter), Dinello (Biréli Lagrène) and even the straight blues classic The Thrill Is Gone (Darnell and Hawkins, made famous by BB King) follow this classic sequence and you can hear fragments of it in thousands of tunes within jazz and beyond. So it’s wise move to familiarise yourself with the common devices we can employ when we encounter it, so as to assimilate some of these ideas to use in our own playing or composing.

The examples that follow outline a number of concepts and techniques that we can employ within a minor jazz-blues. We begin with a four-in-the-bar chord study, rather like you might encounter in gypsy jazz, but also remarkably similar to how one might approach big band swing comping. We move through a Django-style solo, onto some middle register comping via some guide-tone based exercises and studies onto more challenging octaves, chord-melody and bebop style soloing. I’m certain there will be some new ideas here or even some fresh ways to reinterpret things you already know.

Make sure you explore each example in detail and feel free to adapt any of the material to suit your musical preferences and any potential application, as you see fit.

NEXT MONTH John moves on to one of the most common moves in jazz, the major II-V-I

The thing about improvisation is that it’s exactly like grammar. The more you know about it, the more different ways you can talk about any subject Pat Metheny

Django Reinhardt excelled in the swinging minor jazz blues style

We’re dealing mainly with conceptual ideas here so use any guitar you like. For a classic jazz tone select the neck pickup and dial in a clear amp tone; picking closer to the neck for warmth, or for more Django-like bite as close to the bridge as you dare. Many top players, including Robben Ford and Biréli Lagrène flip the pick around and address the string with the curved rear shoulder, rather than the point, for a less percussive and more rounded tone.