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Improvising on “All The Things You Are” using enhanced scales

Improvising on "All The Things You Are" using enhanced scales.
8.9
So I don’t know what you thought. I hope you felt that most of it sounded right. There were a few places where I think there were some perhaps unnecessary tensions. That’s what I want to discuss here. Now this section is a little bit advanced. If it’s too much for you then we can leave it. It’s not central to the development of our course.
31.9
If you want to know what I would use if I were to improvise on this - and remember that this is one of the most complicated chord sequences in the whole of jazz standards, so if you go for a jam session, as I say, this would be one of the hardest tunes to play, in a sense - what would I do? Well I think the first place there would be a discrepancy would be at bar 5, because bar 5 is a II♭-V-I-I. So we’ve got a D flat as the root and we have a major seventh 6/9 version of the chord, and we’re playing over a C scale, rather than over the D flat major scale.
75.9
So they only have - how many is it - a couple of notes in common. Most of the notes don’t really fit. What I need to get across to you is that we’re not really talking about playing over chords - we’re talking about playing over chord sequences. And because it’s a sequence - because eventually it’s II♭-V-I which will resolve to I - you’ll get tension, but you’ll get release when you get there. So although in some sense all the notes are wrong in that bar, you will get resolution … and we’re home to C. I’d probably use D flat major scale in that bar.
118.5
The analogous bar in A2 is the 5th bar of that where we’ve got an A flat major and we’re playing G over it as the scale. So I’d probably again match that with A flat major … and then G … Then the middle 8 as before except the very last chord is this C+7 and I would use a special scale with that called the altered scale which I don’t want to look at this stage. We’ll discuss it when we talk about the modes of the melodic minor, would you believe.
163.4
Then the other place where I would probably differ is in bars 29, 30, 31, 32 - where the chords are going D flat major, D flat minor, C minor, B diminished - I’d probably make the scales agree there. So on the D flat major I’d play the D flat major scale … on the D flat minor I’d play D flat dorian … which is of course B major rooted on D flat. Then the next bar C minor7 I’d play the dorian scale … which is of course B flat major rooted on C.
214.7
Then the next bar I’d play B diminished … which is of course the same notes as in the scale of D diminished … I’ll play a little bit now using those alterations - what I’ve called the enhanced scales - where we’ve got an occasional bar where we have a different scale and then there shouldn’t really be any clashes if I get it right. I’m going to start again just before the jazz - do 1 chorus.

We discuss and illustrate improvising on “All The Things You Are” using an enhanced set of scales.

You can download enhanced scales for “All The Things You Are” in PDF format at the bottom of this step and again are advised to do so before viewing the video.

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Learn jazz piano: Improvising on Jazz Standards

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