Pentatonics & Bebop: The Ultimate Fusion
- Jazz Lesson Videos
- Apr 14
- 6 min read
If you’re looking to get a bit more mileage out of your modern techniques, there are some really useful and creative ways to use them in a bebop context. Today, we're going to be talking about how we can take bebop ideas from classic solos—like bebop scales, arpeggios, passing tones, enclosures, and fuse them with more modern techniques like pentatonics, chord substitutions, chromatic cells and so on.
All the concepts that we're going to talk about today come from Ryan’s brand new resource with Jazz Lesson Videos titled 100 Modern Bebop Phrases. In this resource, you'll find over 100 lines fusing these bebop and modern ideas together over common progressions. All of this is written in all 12 keys for you, and it comes with backing tracks and recordings of Ryan playing them so you can hear how they sound. If you want to hear how Ryan plays through any of these ideas, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video Pentatonics and Bebop: The Ultimate Fusion.
Now let’s get playing!
Contents
Compound cells and bebop ideas
Our first concept that we're going to talk about is compound cells along with bebop ideas. So what that means is we're taking melodic cells or chromatic cells, combining two of them together, putting them over a ii-V-I, and adding some bebop. On this particular one that we're going to analyze, Ryan played the chromatic cells on the first bar, on the minor chord, and then played a classic bebop phrase to resolve to the tonic chord starting on the five.
Here is that line.
So we’re taking this compound idea and playing it in two different key centers. Then we’re aiming for the classic kind of “Cry Me a River,” or #9/b9 altered way of getting back to the tonic chord from the #9 of the V chord. You’ll see Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, and John Coltrane all using this technique. Very classic bebop line.
So we’re taking this modern concept of these compound cells, in the middle part, we’re playing kind of a passing phrase, or like a connector phrase, by playing some of the same tonality—what we have here is like a Bb minor sound played from the bottom, so we’re anticipating the “Cry Me a River” bebop phrase by playing the same notes from the phrase, just in a different order to get us there.
With the tonic chord phrase, we’re just outlining the arpeggio of Dmaj7, just in a different way—dancing around it and ornamenting it in a very classic bebop style.
So the more comfortable you get with this, thinking about compound melodic cells or chromatic cells in different areas, you can have this same principle for the minor chord—place some compound cells on other notes of the chord, other parts of your horn, and then aim for a bebop line that resolves to one. So here's an example of how you can practice this concept.
Pentatonics and bebop
The next concept we're going to talk about is pentatonics fused with bebop ideas. So this line that we're going to analyze is half minor pentatonic/half bebop idea that then resolves to the tonic chord. So on the ii chord, we're playing minor pentatonic. On the V chord, we're playing a classic bebop idea that then resolves to the tonic chord. So here's the line.
The first part of this is an E minor pentatonic on E minor, so staying very diatonic to the key. The E minor pentatonic scale is E, G, A, B, D and E. And we’re playing kind of a downward idea. We do add an F# to this as the nine—kind of more as a passing tone, but E minor pentatonic is the sound of the first chord.
Then we go into a classic kind of Charlie Parker triplet idea. We're encircling or enclosing the 3 of A7, starting on C#, going up and down like that. And then we play another classic b9 transitioning idea to the tonic chord where we don't resolve on the first beat, we go to the tritone and play an enclosure to the 5 of the tonic chord from the tritone.
So we’re kind of using some classic bebop tricks while starting off with a pentatonic idea that has larger intervals and more of that modern sound, which then transitions into the bebop. Here’s how you can practice this concept.
Triad pairs and bebop
Our next concept is triad pairs. Here's the line.
This line is sort of from the Charlie Parker tune “Ornithology.” In the last four bars, he plays these triad pairs. Basically what we're doing is we're playing the minor triad from the root of the minor chord, in this case, F#m, then playing the tritone sub of the next dominant chord, in this case, B7, so we're subbing and playing F minor, and then the next chord, we are in E minor. We play an Em triad, then we play an E-flat triad over A7 and then resolve to D. And what I added to the end of it is to play D and Ab and resolve to Ab7, the tritone of the major chord. So we're just kind of extending that tritone substitution sound all the way to the one chord or the major chord—in this case, Dmaj7.
You also hear how we use some chromatic passing tones to get us from one triad to the next. So we go up F sharp minor, then play a passing tone, B to C to get us to the next triad, then Eb to E, A to Bb, and then C# to D, then we play D major and Ab major triads over Dmaj7. Playing those triad pairs over the major chord is more of a modern concept, and playing them over the progression is more of a bebop concept. That's how you fuse these two together. As you get more comfortable with these concepts, you can start to freely improvise over iii-vi-ii-V progressions with these triad pairs in mind.
Here's a way to practice this, thinking about triad pairs, the tritone substitution that we're talking about, over the same iii-vi-ii-V progression and kind of moving them around a little bit.
Modern substitutions on ii-V progressions
Moving on to the next chapter of the book, we're going to check out modern chord substitutions over minor iiº-V progressions fused with these bebop ideas. So let's take a look at this line.
So on this line, on the iiº chord, our Em7b5, we are playing a Bbm pentatonic, which is a tritone up on the minor chord—more of a modern thing—and playing a pentatonic scale.
Then we're doing that same bebop idea from our last section, enclosing the third of our dominant seven altered chord. So C#in this case, landing on the 6 of our minor chord. You can just think about an altered pentatonic off of an altered note of the chord, the b5.
We play an idea that aims for the dominant chord, where the bebop idea is encircling the 3 and then resolves to the tonic chord, landing on the 6. Here’s how you can practice this concept.
Large intervals and bebop ideas
The final chapter we're going to talk about is covering large intervals fused with bebop ideas. So in this example, we have a traditional idea on our Em7, an “out” intervallic idea on our V chord, and then a diatonic large interval phrase on our tonic chord. Let's check it out.
So on our ii chord, we're playing a traditional Dexter Gordon phrase. We're playing E flat or D sharp to E, then we're going up and approaching our 3, which is G, so F# to our approach tone, and then we land on an A natural, which is our root of our dominant chord, and that's where the intervallic idea begins.
We’re basically playing fourths, starting on C. We’re going C, F, Bb, Eb, and then playing an idea that transitions us to D. Another kind of traditional bebop way of getting there, we’re playing the b9, B-flat. Then we play our intervallic idea over D major, F#, B, E, A, so with those fourths and then eventually land on our root.
The reason why the intervallic phrase on the V chord is “out,” is that we’re starting on the #9 and going to the b13 or the b6 to extension tones. Then we go to the b9 and the tritone, so we’re playing all of the extensions before resolving to the major chord.
Another way of practicing this and thinking about it conceptually is an “inside” bebop idea on the ii chord. Large interval idea means really anything more than a major third, and then resolving to our tonic chord. Here's how we can practice a concept like this.
That’s all for today, but if you want to dive even deeper on these concepts, make sure to check out our YouTube video Pentatonics & Bebop: The Ultimate Fusion, as well as Ryan’s resource with JLV, 100 Modern Bebop Phrases. We’ll see you next time!
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