jammr Forum

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Jazz is all about 2-5 progressions and knowing how to substitute your chords particularly with a tritone.

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So, for instance if an old jazz standard says to play a 1-4-5 progression. In most forms of music you would just play what it said, but in jazz it would be a little different. The bass player would take those basic changes and basically play through the guide tones of the 1-4-5 (the ones and fives) and would probably slide through some passing tones. The guitarists job would be to play the three and seven of each chord, but he would also go through substitutions. He would work his way into the new chords by playing 2-5-1 progressions of the next chords or sliding from 3 half steps (basically a tritone substitutions) Now the pianist would be playing all the 9,11,and 13s up on top for colour. So basically to play jazz as the greats did it you have to use 2-5-1 and tritone is your tenor voice to create great rhythm playing while your bass takes the guide tones.

That makes it sound interesting. That's why the lead sheet for jazz never says the same thing as what you actually hear. And of course, that's not a defined factual way to do it, there are many different styles. Not trying to step on anyone's toes just saying how I do it. There are many different styles and ways to do it and I would love to learn other peoples way of doing it. At the stage I'm at and the age I'm at I'm no expert.