Unlike many of his more well-known soul-jazz tracks, Matador has a more open vibe, showing another side of his playing.

In this lesson, you will learn the melody of Matador. Groovy and fun to play, the melody is almost entirely in the C natural minor scale.

Matador Melody – Video

Matador Melody – Notation/Guitar Tabs

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Matador Guitar Pro 8 File

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Midnight Blue was recorded at the legendary Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey. Burrell’s sound and playing on the track have influenced generations of jazz and blues guitarists. Artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and George Benson have cited Burrell as a key influence.

In this lesson, you will learn how to play the intro and melody of the tune, as well as an improvised solo.

Midnight Blue is a great study in how less can be more.

Midnight Blue – Video

Midnight Blue – Melody

The melody of Midnight Blue is fairly straightforward, although the B section can be tricky and harder to get under your fingers because of the chords.

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Midnight Blue – Solo

This improvised solo is inspired by Kenny Burrell’s vocabulary, mixing blues phrasing, chromatic passing tones, scales, and arpeggios.

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Midnight Blue Guitar Pro 8 File

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The first phrase of the melody is identical to a phrase (Cavaradossi singing “Quale occhio al mondo può star di paro”) in the first act love duet from Tosca, Puccini’s opera.

In 1954, lyrics were added to the melody by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons. Nat King Cole recorded the first version with these lyrics and reached #10 on the Billboard charts.

This chord melody arrangement of Smile uses drop 2 and drop 3 chords, combined with 6ths (more about guitar intervals).

Recommended listening:

• Nat King Cole – Ballads of The Day (1954)
• Tony Bennett – Single (1959)
• Chet Atkins (parts of the melody played with harmonics) – Alone (1973)
• Bireli Largrene – Standards (1992)

Video & Sheet Music/Guitar Tabs

Listen & Play-Along

Smile Guitar Pro 8 File

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Alone Together has a bit of an unusual form because it has a length of 44 bars instead of 32 as is usual with AABA standards (the first two A sections are 14 bars long instead of 8).

Recommended Listening:

• Miles Davis – Blue Moods (1955)
• Chet Baker – Chet (1959)
• Grant Green – Green Street (1961)
• Paul Desmond (w Jim Hall) – Take Ten (1963)
• Bill Evans – Live at the Trident Club (1964)
• Jim Hall & Ron Carter – Alone Together (1972)
• Pat Martino – Cream (1975)
• Larry Coryell – Monk, Trane, Miles & Me (1999)

Video & Sheet Music/Guitar Tabs

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Alone Together Guitar Pro 8 File

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The original recording and many other recorded versions are in F major, with a bridge going to Db major. Duke Ellington’s version with John Coltrane is in Db major.

Recommended Listening:

• Django Reinhardt – Django Reinhardt et le Quintette du Hot Club de France, avec Stéphane Grappelli (1937)
• Sonny Rollins – Sonny Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet (1953)
• Duke Ellington & Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song Book (1957) w Barney Kessel on guitar
• Duke Ellington & John Coltrane – Duke Ellington & John Coltrane (1963)
• Emily Remler – Firefly (1981)
• Michel Petrucciani – Power of Three (1987) w Jim Hall on guitar
• Larry Coryell – Inner Urge (2001)

Video & Sheet Music/Guitar Tabs

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

In a Sentimental Mood Guitar Pro File

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Creating guitar instrumentals of pop songs is a good exercise in reharmonization, phrasing, and recognizing melodic patterns.

The melody of Make You Feel My Love is built on a rhythmic and melodic pattern that is repeated throughout the entire song.

It’s a good idea to get catchy phrases like these under your fingers to use them in your own jazz solos (like you learn in our course Jazz Guitar Patterns & Phrases Volume 1).

In this lesson, you will learn how to play an instrumental version of Bob Dylan’s iconic song, both the chords and the melody.

Make You Feel My Love – Melody

The entire melody is in the C# major scale, in these two positions:

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Make You Feel My Love (Melody) Guitar Pro 8 File

Make You Feel My Love – Chords

The chords (more of a bassline really) are based on Ane Brun’s version of Make You Feel My Love and consist of a combination of bass notes and voice leading.

Listen & Play-Along

Make You Feel My Love (Chords) Guitar Pro 8 File

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eden ahbez (he didn’t capitalize his name) was a member of the “Nature Boys”, a group of nomadic hippies that wore long hair and beards and ate only raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts. At the time of the release of Nature Boy, eden was living under the L of the Hollywood sign in LA.

Recommended listening:

• Nat King Cole – Single (1948)
• Django Reinhardt – From Paris with Love (1949)
• Miles Davis (with Charles Mingus) – Blue Moods (1955)
• John Coltrane – The John Coltrane Quartet Plays (1965)
• Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass – Fitzgerald & Pass… Again (1976)
• George Benson – In Flight (1976)
• Kurt Elling – The Messenger (1997)
• David Bowie – Moulin Rouge! soundtrack (2001)
• Jimmy Rosenberg – The One and Only (2006)
• Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga – Cheek to Cheek (2014)

Nature Boy – Melody

The melody of Nature Boy is almost entirely in the A natural minor scale, except for bars 5-6 and 21-22 where it follows the line cliché (A-G#-G-F#).

Listen & Play-Along

Nature Boy Melody Guitar Pro 8 File

Nature Boy – Chords

Most chords in this arrangement are basic jazz guitar chords. The rhythm takes some time to get used to but is easy to play once you get it under your fingers.

Listen & Play-Along

Nature Boy Chords Guitar Pro 8 File

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In the chord study below, you will mostly learn basic jazz guitar chords and voicings such as minor 7, major 7, dominant 7, and half-diminished 7.

But, you will also learn chord voicings with extensions, such as minor 9, minor 11, dominant 9, dominant 7b9, dominant 7#9, suspended chords, 6/9 chords, and diminished chords over dominants.

I kept the rhythm as simple as possible, as kind of a pop ballad, so you can concentrate on smoothly switching between the chords and getting the voicings under your fingers.

I end the chord study with a typical jazz ending (bar 31).

Instead of the dominant (G7) going to the tonic (Cmaj7), it goes first to the bVI (Abmaj7) and then the bII (Dbmaj7), before finishing on the I (C6/9).

This is called modal interchange, the bVI is borrowed from the relative minor key (Aeolian), and the bII is borrowed from the Phrygian mode.

Guitar Tabs & Video

Listen & Play-Along

Fly Me to the Moon Chords Guitar Pro 8 File

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To help you get a handle on how to play an authentic groove over any Brazilian jazz tune, I’ve put together two chord studies featuring a popular Samba/Bossa groove that you should get under your fingers.

While you are probably familiar with major 7 chords and minor 7 chords, it is very common in Brazilian music to use maj9 and m9 chords instead. These m9 chords have a bit of a “softer” sound than maj7 and m7 chords and help create the smooth-sounding quality that we associate with bossa nova.

In these chord studies, you will notice that the thumb plays bass notes on 1 and 3 of each bar, mostly the root note alternated with the 5th to create some movement.

Blue Bossa Chord Study #1

In this first Blue Bossa chord study, I play a typical bossa nova rhythm guitar pattern on acoustic guitar.

Notice that bossa nova chord patterns always have the following specifics:

• The bass notes come on the beat and are played with the thumb.
• Usually, the root note is alternated with the 5th (or a b5 in the case of m7b5 chords) in the bass.
• The top voices of the chord are syncopated (syncopation = accenting a normally weak beat).

Drum Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Blue Bossa Chord Study 1 Guitar Pro File

Blue Bossa Chord Study #2

The next chord study is very similar to the first, but played on acoustic guitar and has some variations here and there.

Listen & Play Along

Blue Bossa Chord Study 2 Guitar Pro File

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This arrangement mainly uses drop 2 and drop 3 chords, two kinds of basic chord shapes that are essential for every jazz guitarist.

Drop 2 and drop 3 chords are commonly used in jazz guitar playing and by learning these voicings, you will add more variety to your guitar playing.

By learning the chords of Autumn Leaves you will familiarize yourself with a classic jazz standard while also expanding your knowledge of jazz harmony and chord progressions.

The harmony of Autumn Leaves is a great example of major and minor ii V I progressions, the bread and butter of jazz music.

This chord study is an excerpt of our course Jazz Standards 101 – Autumn Leaves (click below for more information).

Video & Guitar Tabs

Listen & Play-Along

Guitar Chord Chart

Here are the guitar chord charts for every voicing used in the Autumn Leaves arrangement.

Autumn Leaves Easy Chords Guitar Pro File

This chord study is an excerpt of our course Jazz Standards 101 – Autumn Leaves (click below for more information).

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