Jazz is a complicated sort of blues
A lot of jazz tunes are based on the idea of the blues. A lot tunes used fairly standard blues changes – with more harmonies than usually found in the blues
Comparing Blues and Jazz
Just try to play what’s in your heart. It is a good idea to think stuff through and a lot of people in jazz do think a lot. But I think it might be best to get in the habit of going with ones intuition. If the stereotypical blues guy was saying “I feel so bad, my baby left me”, a stereotypical jazz guy might be saying something like “I feel down and out cause my girl left me, she was so good and all I dreamed of, she used to do this one thing that I don’t think I’ll ever forget…” (and take 5 more choruses to explain it)
Blues + Classical + Afrolatin = Jazz ?!
Sort of at least. I think a lot of the harmonies are based on European music. Obvious there is a strong influence from African music as well. Another big part of jazz has also been the interesection of standard jazz ideas with rhythms from Latin America.
The “major blues”
A blues blues
| F7 | Bb7 | F7 | F7 |
| Bb7 | Bb7 | F7 | F7 |
| C7 | Bb7 | F7 | C7 |
A jazz blues
How’s this for your maybe your first blues with jazz sensibilities?
| F7 | Bb7 | C-7 | F7 |
| F-7 | Bb7 | F7 | D7 |
| G-7 | C7 | F7 D7 | G-7 C7 |
Chord substitution
You do not have to play the C-7 or the G-7, you could just play the F7 and C7. But when you play C-7 to F7 and G-7 to C7, you get a thicker, jazzier sound. These are called chord substitutions.
The turnaround
Remember how the blues has a turnaround? Well, so does blues in jazz. Look at the last two bars. You can hear it bringing you back around to the top. But it sounds a lot different than the traditional blues turnaround, huh?