How Jazz Musicians Play the Blues

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If you want to play the blues like a jazz musician, I'm going to show you a jazz solo that walks through exactly how a jazz musician would think about playing over this important song form.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
00:20 What is a blues?
01:00 Going over Jazz Blues line #1
02:19 What are Chromatic Passing Tones?
04:45 Jazz Blues line #2
05:47 What is an Approach Note?
07:00 Jazz Blues line #3
07:36 What is an Enclosure?
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[@ScarletteFiesci]

Brent thank you. Love your lessons. I'm so looking forward to joining your circle when I can. As a classically-trained pianist who's always wanted to play jazz and the blues, your explanations and teaching style really does make me believe that this isn't a skill that is out of reach for me. Thank you again!

[@Learnjazzstandards]

Thanks! Looking forward to having you with us.

[@amitgarg2419]

Such a great lesson. This is the first solo I've mastered and already feel myself getting swaggier by the minute. What song is this solo from??

[@GiovanniPirri]

Great!

[@emmanuelsmith826]

Thanks

[@rvmusictv0122]

Thanks for sharing ❤🙏

[@Learnjazzstandards]

You are so welcome!

[@charlieb8735]

Blues music theory-
-If it’s a chord, it’s a dominant 7th.
-If you’re not sure about minor or major thirds just do both
^the above is about as correct as theory on blues gets but also completely wrong. And that’s the blues, baby.
With that out of the way, it is interesting to me that this jazz guitar solo and perhaps the style generally, resists a lot of the unique elements of blues guitar to some extent. Besides the syncopations and gaps, it largely would work as a bass line and sounded equally correct as a piano line.
I would be curious to hear the thoughts on how/why a genre like blues that was largely built around guitar is interpreted the way it is within jazz. It definitely ends up a lot smoother and more relaxed as well as fitting with jazz repertoire far better stylistically but it feels like a completely different instrument from the one that was so key in creating the blues.

[@onethree123d]

Hi, I want to get your course but I have question I looked in the site but didn't find an answe. How many hours is the course? Also it's one course or multiple I got confused reading the info on the site. Thank you.

[@Learnjazzstandards]

Hi @onethree123d! Thank you for your interest. We have 24 courses that you can learn at your own pace. So, there's no certain time limit to finish them.
Once you're a member of the Inner Circle, you'll get access to 24 courses, 44 monthly Jazz Standards Studies with a complete resource pack, and an exclusive monthly live Q&A with Brent. Most of all, you'll get to learn in a vibrant and supportive community of like-minded musicians.
If you have more questions, you can reach out to me at [e-mail] and I'll help you with your queries.

[@stephenladanyi5217]

In the first bar, why are the second and third notes labelled 11 and #11 rather than 4 and #4, when they sit on the bar line between the notes labelled 3 and 5?

[@JESL_Only_1]

One answer is to emphasize they're passing notes, chromaticisms, contrasting them with the chord tones. Note how later he treats a natural seventh as a chromaticism(!) and the flat 7 as a chord tone. This is because it's a blues. Hope that helps.

[@definitely9353]

When jazz musicians talk about chord structure, we use odd numbers (7,9,11,13) when referring to dominant chords. Labelling the notes as 4 (although technically correct) implies a sus chord rather than the dominant present in bar 1 of a blues