Let’s learn a famous french chanson ”Autumn leaves” . Probably you’ve heard this song already , coz so many musicians played this song in jazz , gypsy jazz , pop etc.
Looks like there are many chords in it but actually not. It’s just usual jazz thing, isnt it? to add more chords sound jazz-ier.
Anyway this song has very beautiful melody and quite easy to improvise.
OK, let it begin!
Chords
I add chord shape examples but when it’s dominat chord , like D7 or C7 etc , I often use b5 chords too . Also when it’s Major chords, I use maj7 or 6 or 69 chords. It depends on my feeling.
Point
C Major can be CMaj 7, CMaj79, C6 , C69
Cm can be Cm6 , Cm69 (Basically this can’t change to Cm7)
C7 can be C7b5 , C79 etc but dominant chords have quite rules to do so.
This is backing pattern I used.
SOLO
Improvisation
Now, let’s improvise the solo.
This is a lesson solo. I add some licks like Django and Stochelo Rosenberg , or Joscho Stephan would play some of licks here as well.
After learning the solo , try to make your own licks or modify the licks from the lesson and add them into your own solo!
This is PDF for this solo. Autumn leaves improvisation