The jazz standard “My Funny Valentine”

In the last session I ended up doing 2 choruses of jazz, because I forgot to show you how you can use this rising sus to the flattened fifth or sharpened eleventh, however you want to look at it, and then back to the third. I included a third chorus and then I thought I might as well keep it in. Let’s turn to our final tune “My Funny Valentine” by Rodgers and Hart - a ballad. Let me first of all play you the tune, using the chords here.

The normal thing is to have what’s called this falling bass line. Doo dooey dooey doo - C major7 over B - doo dooey dooey doo - Cminor7 over B flat - doo dooey dooey doo - C minor6 over A, and then to A flat - doo doo doo.. etc. So that falling line is pretty standard. It’s what most people do. But you might be interested to know that Jarrett uses a rising middle, so - takes the fifth and raises it here’e the tune.

This idea of a rising middle - a device that Jarrett uses quite a bit. The playalong I am going to use is from Volume 25. Unfortunately it only does one chorus as a ballad and then it goes in to some sort of double time, which is not really the feel I want you to hear, so I’ll just play 1 chorus of jazz with the playalong.