As jazz players, we’re all familiar with the blues in some way. In fact, the blues is part of how jazz came to be—it’s a genre with a deep history, stemming from African Americans in the 1860s. But fast forward to today, and you’ll hear jazz musicians still playing the blues every day all around the world. 

The blues is a 12-bar chord progression that’s used with hundreds of different melodies and harmonic variations. There are so many beautiful ways that people solo over blues progressions, but today we’re going to talk about five soloing techniques that you can use within your own jazz improvisation.

But before we get going, all of the techniques we cover today are coming from our resource titled 27 Blues Etudes, written by Chad LB. There’s a bunch of useful concepts in these etudes, like bebop techniques, melodic cells, pentatonic shifting, straight-ahead shred, different blues styles and more. The book comes with recordings of all 27 of these etudes being played by Chad LB. And if you want to hear how Nathan plays through these etudes, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, 5 Soloing Techniques for Blues in Jazz.

Now let’s get bluesy!

Contents

Motivic development

Utilizing more blue notes

Using more triplets

Adding in melodic chromaticism

Using Bird Blues

Motivic development

Our first step in improving as a blues player is to recognize the importance of a motif. Motifs are short musical ideas, and motivic development is when we expand on motifs through techniques like repetition and variation. Here’s an example from page 7 of the resource.

So this set of notes here before the first rest is our first motif. After this brief pause, we play the exact same notes up until this Bb, before we went down to the sixth, E. Then we go up to the flat third, Bb, which is a blue note, then we resolve it onto a G, which before we resolve in a two note figure D and G down an octave. 

So already our motif has developed with repetition and a slight variation. This sets up a nice segue into the new melodic figure, which stars on a beat four pickup into measure five. Now there’s a new mini motif going on here, starting on this Bb, and it walks its way down to the D, then on the “and” of 4, we do this exact same set of notes again, but this time we introduce some variation by creating a chromatic enclosure around the D.

We’ll use this as a segue and transition into another motif, which is this three-note figure. Here, a chromatic approach into the third and then the fifth. Playing this back to back creates this neat syncopation. We’ll pivot back into yet another motif, this is a three-beat motif starting on this D7, and using the blues scale, we have this neat rhythmic figure and we’ll repeat it again on beat four, creating yet more neat syncopation.

On beat 3 of C7, Chad hints that he’s going to do this motif again, but cleverly, it switches into a different cell at the end of this phrase. The last measure of this chorus serves as a big melodic pickup into the first measure of the next chorus. From here, we see a very obvious motif, and not only that, Chad sets up a call and response with himself. In measure five of this chorus, this motif takes on a whole other rhythm and finally in G7 we brand into new melodic material, ending off with material inspired from the first chorus’ motifs. 

Utilizing more blue notes

Our second soloing technique for today is to use blue notes more often. Blue notes are “wrong” notes that just feel right. The most essential ones are the b7, b3, and b5. There are two popular blues scales you can utilize as well—the major blues scale and the minor blues scale. 

The major blues scale is just a major pentatonic scale with an added b3. The minor blues scale is a minor pentatonic scale with an added b5. 

On page one of the resource, Chad uses an eight-note blues scale, which he calls the ultra blues scale. This is a minor blues scale with an added major third, making the b3 sound like a chromatic approach note into the major third, and we also add a major 7, which acts like a passing tone from the b7 to the root, just like in a dominant bebop scale. 

This is part of a longer etude, but it’s good to look at the first few measures. The entire etude uses the Bb ultra blues scale, and what’s cool is that you can completely ignore the changes and this ultra blues scale is just going to work.

So you can play the changes, just play the ultra blues scale, or some combination of both. 

Using more triplets

Triplets are your best friend, but especially in the blues, since they are the foundation of a swing feel. Let’s look at an etude from page five of the resource and break it down.

So as you can see, we’ve got plenty of triplet action going on here. First measure, we’ve got a triplet and a nice motif. Second measure, we’ve got the same triplet and motif with a slight variation. Third measure, we got another triplet going down the blues scale, and then we stray away from it a bit, because we don’t want to spam with triplets. In measure six, we get a 16th note triplet, and then from the pickup into measure nine, triplets carry out the rest of this chorus.

You can see them everywhere, and they all sound so nice, especially when paired with the blues scale.

Adding in melodic chromaticism

Our next tip is one that applies for jazz in general, but it really takes blues to another level, and that’s using melodic chromaticism. These are things like chromatic approach notes, enclosures, and chord substitutions. Let’s check out an example from page 12 that demonstrates some of these concepts.

So what’s going on here? We start off with this bluesy triplet figure on the pickup measure and on the first official measure, this F7, we have this nice chromatic bluesy figure. We play that #4, go down to the root, the natural four down to the root, then the third, so that upper voice is chromatically approaching that major third. Here in the next measure, we got a nice chromatic enclosure around this fourth, and when we return to the F7 here, we go down the F dominant bebop scale with a chromatic passing tone between the root and b7. 

Now there’s a quick ii-V and we’re really implying the sound of an altered V, and how it’s done here is by going up a half step from the root of F7 to an F# and thinking of F# minor. When we go down, we voice lead to the F and simply play an F dominant bebop figure that chromatically approaches the b7 and returns to the F.

After this resolution, we’ve got a flurry of 16th notes. This is chock full of chromatic enclosures and chromatic passing tones.

Finally, we resolve back to eighth notes on the Gm7 (of the ii chord), and yet still have chromatic passing tones such as the C (the 11th) chromatically walking down to the b3, Bb. Then we dip down and jump up to the ninth and chromatically walk our way back down to the root. We’ll chromatically walk our way down to a sort of C7sus sound here, embellishing this fourth, but then going down to the 2, 7, 2, then we anticipate the tonic chord by playing an early F7 figure here on beat three and seven of C7 then we end off this chorus by playing the exact same figure as what was at the very beginning of this etude. 

Using Bird Blues

Our fifth and final tip for today’s video is to substitute the changes from Bird Blues into your blues. Bird Blues changes is referring to the chord progression to Charlie Parker’s composition, “Blues for Alice.”

You can take any of these sections and apply them in the same spots over an ordinary jazz-blues progression. 

In measures two through four, the chords are really a long approach into the IV chord in measure five. Measures six through eight are a long approach into the ii chord in measure 9. Let’s check out the Bird Blues etude found on page 21 of our resource. 

Try playing through the progression for “Blues for Alice” then substituting that over an ordinary blues progression. You’ll see that it still works and adds a little bit of spice as well.

That’s all for today, hopefully this helped get you thinking of ways to be creative in the blues. If you want to see how Nathan runs through these examples, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, 5 Soloing Techniques for Blues in Jazz, as well as our resource 27 Blues Etudes, written by Chad LB. We’ll see you next time!