Jazz Advice

The process of learning to improvise is a journey. A long and rewarding journey and
one that is punctuated by a series of milestones.
This can be hard to see from that comfy seat inside of your practice room, but take a
step back from your daily routine and look at the path that brought you to where you
are today.
You played your first notes, you learned your first scale, you learned your first tune,
you figured out the inner workings of a chord progression, you got fluent in all 12 keys,
you worked on the blues and rhythm changes, you learned your first ii-V- I line, you
transcribed your first solo
As you begin your musical journey these milestones are huge and transform you at a
personal level. Your first notes on your instrument turned you into a musician. Your first
solo over that chord progression made you an improviser.
These leaps forward changed your identity and set you apart from everyone around
you. However the better you get, these breakthroughs are fewer and far between. More
effort and determination is required to make even the smallest step forward.
But even the small steps forward are essential to your improvement and gradually
move you toward your goal of becoming a great improviser. This musical path that
youre on can be as long or short as you want it to be. Your destination can be the sound
that you hear on your favorite records or maybe you just want to be better than you
were last week.
Whatever your aspirations, this path to your goal is paved with many milestones
Getting started with chromatic ii-Vs
So lets go back to that stuffy practice room. Youve taken a quick inventory of your
musical progress: youve learned some tunes, youve got some instrumental technique,
you feel comfortable over standards, youve transcribed some solos and you can even
navigate ii-Vs like clockwork. But whats your next major breakthrough?
Answer: Chromatic ii-Vs
One of the musical milestones that many improvisers can intellectualize and analyze,
but few can play well over is the chromatic ii-V7 progression a sequence of ii-V7
progressions either ascending or descending by half-step:
In your journey through the Great American Songbook, youve probably run across
some chromatic ii-Vs, especially if youve played any of these common standards:
Moments Notice
Stablemates
Lover
Blues for Alice
The Eternal Triangle
To get a quick idea, listen to this version of Stablemates from the Paul Chambers album
Chambers Music with John Coltrane. Especially listen for the descending chromatic ii-V
in the first two bars of the progression, | E-7 A7 | Eb-7 Ab7 | Db |:
Chromatic ii-Vs are also commonly used in a number of standards to add interest and
harmonic tension to the otherwise predictable progression of the ii-V-I. Some familiar
tunes that use this concept are:
It Could Happen to You: last two bars of A section
Woodyn You: 2nd and 6th bar of the bridge
You Stepped Out of a Dream:
Instead of playing a normal ii-V in the last two bars of the A section:
A chromatic ii-V, a half-step above the original is inserted, doubling the harmonic
motion and adding some tension. Listen for these spots in the above video as Dexter
plays (0:28, 1:08, 1:49, etc.):
Its also important to keep in mind that chromatic ii-Vs arent only limited to the
written chord progression. You can imply this device in various places throughout a
tune as you solo. For instance, as illustrated in the above example, you can insert a
chromatic ii-V before the final ii-V in a tune or any strong resolution point.
Employing this simple device in can add harmonic interest, especially when you imply
them over the original static chord progression.
Concepts for improvising over chromatic ii-Vs
The first stumbling block that we encounter as we try to play over chromatic ii-Vs is
connecting these two unrelated progressions in some sort of musical way. In this case,
ii-V doesnt lead to the I chord as we would expect, it leads to another ii-V.
Whats more, this second ii-V is not related to the first ii-V at all. The key center is
completely different and there are hardly any common tones with which you can easily
connect them. Coming from the guidelines of harmony that were familiar with iii VI
ii V I , creating a logical improvised line can be tough.
The goal in these situations, is to come up with something musical, not mechanical.
However, like many musical concepts this is easier said than done.
When you first begin, chromatic ii-Vs can feel like a sort of musical straight jacket. Its
as if you are forced to play a specific pattern just to avoid hitting a wrong note or getting
lost in the form. The changes are so complex and moving by so quickly that the only
option you have is to outline the chords or insert a memorized lick.
The result is a premeditated music theory exercise instead of a flowing melodic solo.
So how do you improvise musically over chromatic ii-Vs?
As with the majority of your difficulties with improvisation, its best to consult the
records for the answers. Rather than trying to follow one set method or a bunch of
music theory guidelines, go put on a recording of your favorite player. There are a ton
of options out there. Tunes like Blues for Alice, Moments Notice, and even Stablemates
have been recorded hundreds of times over the years by pretty much every major
player you can think of.
Study these players and figure out how they sounded good over these challenging
progressions. Once youve picked out a recording you like, isolate those spots in the
tune with chromatic ii-Vs. Then, put them into Transcribe to loop the phrase and slow
it down.
Its no coincidence that nearly every great musician subscribes to the mantra slow
practice. Listen to that phrase youve selected a dozen times, sing along with the
record, figure out the notes and intervals on your instrument, and analyze how those
note choices relate to the chord progression. Then slowly get the line up to speed up to
the point that you can effortlessly play along with the recording. Your ultimate goal is to
ingrain these lines into your ears and your technique, to eventually make that line a part
of yourself.
The process is the same whether youre trying to get language over one ii-V or figuring
out how to play over the blues. You need a model to study, some language that you can
start with, and hours of practice ingraining that technique or sound into your own
playing.
Simply put, take one small idea and practice it until you get it.
Below Ive taken some key spots from a few well known solos and extracted some ideas
that caught my ear over those troublesome chromatic ii-Vs. With each example Ive
highlighted some techniques and concepts that you can incorporate into your own
playing.
Remember there are countless ideas to be found on any recording, its up to you which
ones you pick, study, and incorporate into your playing.
Creating lines vs. playing ii-V licks
One of the first traps that we fall into as we play over a tune like Moments Notice is
inserting ii-V licks over each ii-V. For instance you commonly hear predictable lines like
this played over chromatic ii-Vs:
Seems logical enough, right? Youre following the theory rules and you have all the 7-3
resolutions. Just cut-and-paste one ii-V lick and youre good to go??
As you can see, its a very stop start way of improvising. Instead of taking this route, try
to play phrases that go across the bar lines and aim to use language instead of licks.
Start thinking in terms of a continuous musical phrase rather than that cut and paste lick
approach.
To get an idea of this concept, lets check out a few lines from John Coltranes solo on
Moments Notice:
Take this line for example, from Tranes second chorus (1:38 in the video):
In this example we hear a seamless lines, the musical phrase doesnt break because the
chords change, no stop and start between ii-V licks.
One thing that is often startling when you analyze Coltranes solos from a certain
period, is that they are often very inside harmonically. We commonly think of his
playing as pushing the limits and exploring the boundaries of harmonic potential, but a
large part of his development and mastery of improvisation was spent mastering
standards and common ii-V-Is.
However, when you take a close look at the lines that he is playing, you see something
different than what you might expect. As the progressions become more complex and as
the harmonic motion of the tune increases, the melodic content of his solos becomes
simpler. (use of bebop scales, arpeggios, triads, language) similar to the way he plays
over Giant Steps.
Here is another example from the same solo (1:57 in the video):
In the case of a chromatic ii-V like we find in Moments Notice, you dont always have
to think about your line starting at the beginning of the form and One ii-V is an
extension of a previous phrase, the next ii-V is the start of another phrase, not just
isolated ii-Vs. Take a look at how Trane uses this idea at the beginning of his third
chorus (2:14 in the video):
Instead of starting every line on beat one of the first measure, he continues his line from
the previous chorus into the next chorus. Essentially splitting those two ii-Vs up and
eliminating the difficulty of connecting those two sounds.
V7 instead of ii-V7
Playing over chromatic ii-Vs can get overwhelming and stressful pretty quickly,
especially on up-tempo tunes, so anything that we can do to simplify this progression is
extremely useful. One way to simplify things is to think of the entire progression as a
single chord (only the V7 or only the ii-7 chord)
This type of thinking can quickly simplify this complex progression:
| E-7 A7 | F-7 Bb7 | becomes | A7 | F-7 Bb7 |
| E-7 A7 | F-7 Bb7 | becomes | E-7 A7 | Bb7 |
| A7 | Bb7 | Eb |
For example, lets look again at one of those Coltrane lines from above:
Over the | F-7 Bb7 | in the third measure of the example, he uses a descending Bb7
bebop scale over the entire ii-V progression. Rather than a jumble of confusing ii-Vs
you can just think of a plain old V7 chord and apply your dominant language over that
entire progression.
Or heres another example of substituting V7 for ii-V from Sonny Stitts solo on the
bridge to Eternal Triangle:
On the bridge of his second chorus (3:35 in the video) he plays the line shown below,
emphasizing the V7 of every ii-V7 chord.
Similar to the Coltrane example, Stitt uses a descending bebop scale of the V7 chord for
each ii-V7.
You can also go the other way and substitute the ii chord for the entire measure instead
of the usual ii-V7.
In the progression below, think | E- | instead of | E- A7 | and | Eb- | instead of | Eb-
Ab7 | :
Imply just the minor ii chord over that entire ii-V within a chromatic ii-V sequence:
With this mindset you have an entire measure to apply any minor language that youve
developed and you greatly simply the complexity of moving between chromatic ii-Vs
youre just moving from one minor chord to the next.
Connecting those ii-Vs
The crucial spot in chromatic ii-Vs comes in finding the connection between one ii-V to
the next. Focus on this spot, practicing it very slowly. Study how great improvisers
navigate this tricky area and employ these devices in your own playing.
Below is an example of how Clifford Brown solves the problem of connecting chromatic
ii-Vs in a musical way. This excerpt is taken from his solo on the tune Cookin which is a
Bird blues (1:54 in the clip below):
Notice how Clifford connects his line from one measure to the next by half-steps:
Aim for this type of logical resolution in your own lines.
Changing direction
One thing that can make your playing very predictable is the direction of your lines.
In the above example, every phrase starts and stops with the same lick an ascending
minor arpeggio that resolves downward. It sounds like a music theory exercise because
that is essentially what it is, the same line in the same direction over and over again.
Change direction in your line, as shown in Coltrane example, as the progression ascends
by half step, have your line descend, Many players get stuck playing a sequence for
each set of ii-Vs, using a ii-V lick and transposing it through each succesive key. if you
go up one ii-V, go down the next one:
Take a listen to the Parker line (0:49 in the clip below):
This line isnt that harmonically different from the ii-V exercise above, however it is in
a different world musically. Rhythmically the line is much more interesting, not just
eighth notes, and the direction of the line is varied from one measure to the next.
Harmonic anticipation and delayed resolution
One way to steer clear of the predictability of chromatic ii-Vs is to avoid resolving each
chord on the barline or as the chord changes. An effective way to do this is through the
use of delayed resolution and harmonic anticipation. Instead of changing progressions
on the bar lines wait one or two beats before or after the chord to resolve. Take a look at
that Clifford Brown excerpt again:
Notice how he doesnt resolve the chord at it arrival, but rather delays the resolution by
a few beats. He achieves this effect primarily through the use of enclosures.
Besides delaying the arrival of the chord, you can also anticipate the next progression
(see this article for more detail).
Anticipating a chord is essentially starting new progression one or two beats before its
arrival. Once again lets go back to that Sonny Stitt line on the bridge of Eternal Triangle
for a great example of this concept:
Notice how he anticipates the arrival of each chromatic ii-V by a few beats.
Chord substitutions
Finally you can explore substitutions for the chromatic ii-Vs you encounter. For
ascending chromatic ii-Vs (like Moments Notice) you can imply a minor ii-V a minor
3rd above the original progression (check out this article for more info):
| E-7 A7 | F-7 Bb7 | becomes | G-7 C7 | F-7 Bb7 |
or you can even think of it like this:
| E-7b5 A7 alt. | = | G-7 C7 |
In the above progression, | E-7 A7 | F-7 Bb7 |, the problem spot is connection the A7 to
the F-7. This minor 3rd substitution essentially replaces A7 with C7, which naturally
leads to F-7 in the next measure.
Here are some other ideas that you can experiment with by altering the V7 chord:
There are many possibilities continuing with the concept above of using a
diminished triad relationship, for that A7 chord you can substitute C7, Eb7, and
F#7.
Experiment with Tritone substitutions on the V7 chords:| E-7 Eb7 | F-7 E7 | Eb
Maj7 |or replace the first ii-V by transposing it up a minor 3rd and tritone sub
those V7 chords:| G-7 F#7 | F-7 E7 | Eb Maj7 | which creates a nice descending
chromatic motion.
Tritone sub with only the V7 chords: | A7 | Bb7 | Eb Maj7 | becomes | Eb7 | E7
| Eb Maj7|
Practicing these methods and concepts
The idea of playing well over chromatic ii-V7s goes directly back to playing well over a
single ii-V7 progression. If you have trouble over one ii-V, multiple ii-V7s moving by
half steps are going to be very difficult. If you cant play over Satin Doll, Moments
Notice is going to feel impossible.
One thing that you have to remember is that all of these concepts and lines look great on
paper and hopefully they make sense in your mind, but when it comes to actually
playing them in your solos, you need to get to another level of understanding.
You need to physically hear the sound of these lines, you need to ingrain them in your
ear and fingers through repetition, you need to transform that music theory into
language.
Practice these concepts and sounds slowly and out of time at first. Hear the nuance of
each musical device and spend time until they are ingrained.
Get the sound of the progression in your ear and try to play what you would sing over
these chords. Its very easy to sound mechanical and unmusical over chromatic ii-Vs.
Thinking only of voice leading rules (i.e. 7-3 resolutions or arpeggios) can become very
predictable and boring and disjunct from a melodic perspective
All of these lines and devices are useful to study, but remember that you will gain the
most benefit from transcribing them yourself. Its one thing to look at them on paper
and its an entirely different thing to listen to them and figure them out for yourself.
Finding your milestone
Enjoying and appreciating each of these milestones is one of the great parts of practicing
this music. Getting up to speed on chromatic ii-Vs is just one example of a musical
milestone that you can aim for. No matter where you are in your development, no
matter how far youve come, you can always practice, study, and listen and improve a
little more, aiming for that next milestone in your musical development.
The nice thing about improvisation, is that you can continually come back to any aspect
of the music and improve and expand your abilities and knowledge. With something as
simple as a major chord, a ii-V progression, or the blues there will always be room for
improvementalways.
You can apply new concepts youve discovered through listening, new language that
youve transcribed, and new techniques that youve developed on your instrument.
Those tunes, chords, and progressions continue to remain the same, however, you are
bringing something new to the table every time you attempt them. The potential for
improvement and discovery is always just a focused practice session away.
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