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Chapter 6: Jazz

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    • 6.1: Swing Rhythms
      This page explores two crucial rhythmic elements in jazz: swing eighths, characterized by an uneven duration of notes, and the backbeat, which emphasizes beats 2 and 4. These rhythms create a swing groove and enhance syncopation, challenging traditional meter hierarchies by highlighting less dominant beats. The variability of these rhythms among different pieces and performers underscores their significance in jazz music.
    • 6.2: Chord Symbols
      This page discusses chord symbols, emphasizing their role in indicating triad qualities, extensions, and alterations in jazz harmonies. It highlights the necessity of consistency in notation and differentiates between chord symbols and Roman numerals, noting that the former provides absolute labels while the latter indicates a chord's position in a key.
    • 6.3: Jazz Voicings
      This page provides principles for voicing chords in jazz, emphasizing wide intervals for lower registers and closer ones for higher registers. It recommends doubling the bass, omitting the fifth, and maintaining smooth voice leading with two to three upper voices. Beginners are encouraged to experiment with chord extensions, using guidelines as suggestions rather than strict rules. Resources include a chord symbols handout and assignments for practicing voice leading in jazz textures.
    • 6.4: ii–V–I
      This page discusses the ii–V–I chord progression in jazz, highlighting its foundational role in compositions and cadences. It explores variations across keys and introduces applied chords and "ii–V space" to visualize relationships in ii–V–I motions. Turnarounds are also mentioned as a way to loop back to the tonic, supported by examples from popular jazz tunes.
    • 6.5: Embellishing Chords
      This page explores two techniques for integrating new harmonies into jazz chord progressions: applied ii chords and common-tone diminished seventh chords (CTo7). It highlights how jazz musicians enhance standard songs, exemplified by Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo." Applied ii chords lead to dominant chords, while CTo7 chords facilitate neighbor motion using a common tone.
    • 6.6: Substitutions
      This page discusses chord substitution methods in jazz, highlighting their importance. Techniques covered include applied chords, mode mixture, and tritone substitutions. Applied chords involve substituting a dominant chord in a fifth progression, while mode mixture borrows from parallel keys. Tritone substitutions replace dominant chords a tritone apart, preserving functional harmony.
    • 6.7: Chord-Scale Theory
      This page discusses Chord-Scale Theory, a method that links chords and scales to assist jazz improvisation by informing musicians' choices based on chord functions and key centers. It promotes the use of specific scales like Dorian for corresponding chords but faces criticism for lacking voice leading and chromaticism, potentially resulting in disjointed lines. Despite these limitations, the theory, grounded in George Russell’s ideas, remains influential in jazz education.
    • 6.8: Blues Harmony
      This page discusses the blues genre's significance in U.S. music, highlighting its African American roots and differences from jazz. It describes the standard 12-bar blues structure, its chord progressions, and variations, such as the jazz blues which fuses jazz elements while maintaining core blues traits. The essence of the blues persists through adaptations by various artists over time.
    • 6.9: Blues Melodies and the Blues Scale
      This page discusses essential aspects of blues music, focusing on its lyrical structure, particularly the "aab" format and the call-and-response technique rooted in African American work songs. Clarence Williams' "Gulf Coast Blues" is given as an example. It also covers the blues scale and its major variation, along with practical assignments for students to engage with these concepts through worksheets, improvisation, and composition projects.

    This page titled Chapter 6: Jazz is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Mark Gotham, Kyle Gullings, Chelsey Hamm, Bryn Hughes, Brian Jarvis; Megan Lavengood, and John Peterson via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.