Improvising Over A Jazzy Chord Progression When Not A Jazzman
Pierre Journel from The Guitar Channel challenged me some time ago with the following jazzy chords progression during an online jam (more on that later…):
Em7 / EbM7 / Dm7 / DbM7
Improvising by ear without knowing the progression at all is a bit challenging at first with such radical changes… But even if you are not a trained jazzman used to dealing with chromatisms, it is still possible to survive with your good old blues-rock habits: yes you can!
One way to interpret this progression is indeed:
G/E Gm/Eb F/D Fm/Db.
With this interpretation, you can now easily play bluesy licks on G and F pentatonic/blues scales: I find it easier (and more natural sounding) to keep a single root as reference for these two chords in a row, and go from major to minor rather than switching scales with chromatic changes. It also sounds more bluesy, which I tend to prefer over traditional jazz :-).
It’s basically the equivalent of playing with the following sequence of tonal changes:
G Major / G minor / F Major / F minor
Here are two quick runs using this idea over a quick & dirty backing track recorded for the occasion. To get inspired, using different guitars and presets often helps!
