Here's my favorite Bonnie Raitt song. What's yours?
Dm7 Em7 G Am7 F F/G G C C Dm7 | Em7 | A friend of mine she cries at night, and she F | F/G | Calls me on the phone Dm7 | Em7 | Sees babies everywhere she goes and she F | F/G | Wants one of her own. Dm7 | Em7 | She's waited long enough she says F | F/G | And still she can't decide Dm7 | Em7 | Abdim | Am | Pretty soon she'll have to choose and it tears her up inside... F | F/G G | C | She's scared...scared she'll run out of time. I see my folks, they're getting old, I watch their bodies change... I know they see the same in me, And it makes us both feel strange... No matter how you tell yourself, It's what we all go through... Those eyes are pretty hard to take when they're staring' back at you. Scared you'll run out of time. Bb | F | When did the choices get so hard? C | C | With so much more at stake. Dm7 | Em7 | Abdim | Am | Life gets mighty precious when there's less of it to waste. F | F/G G | C | C | Hummmm...Scared she'll run out of time. Just when I thought I'd had enough All my tears were shed... No promise left unbroken, There were no painful words unsaid. You came along and showed me How to leave it all behind.... You opened up my heart again and then much to my surprise. I found love, Love in the Nick of Time. Dm7 Em7 | G Am7 | F | F/G G C
The roots of the blues are preserved in earlier
recordings, which are definitely recommended listening for any blues lover. The
light they shed on more recent blues is not to be underestimated1 In much of
early blues, the meter was anything but strict. Beats and bars were added and
omitted freely, according to the whim of the performer. In fact, it could be
said that early blues performers felt the music as a flow of beats rather than
regular meter and phrase lengths. Today’s blues are rigid and predictable in
comparison.
Two main elements make up
the blues: the blues scale and the chord changes.
There are zillions of sets
of “blues changes.” Having said
that, let’s get back to reality: There is a single, commonly accepted set of
three-chord blues changes, more or less unchanged since the earliest days of
jazz, and still played today.
All of these chords-C7,
F7, and G7-are dominant 7th chords. We’ll call them (relative to C)
I, IV, and V. Some good examples of three-chord blues include songs by Miles Davis
and Thelonious Monk.
Blues changes evolved
slightly in the 1930’s. The additions of the IV chord (F7) in the second bar,
and the V chord (G7) in the last bar.
More complex set of blues
changes came into being during the bebop era. Now we’ve added tritone
substitutions and descending chromatic progressions. A quick note about what it
is: Tritone substitution means substituting a V chord a tritone away for the
original V chord (F#7 for C7).
So which version of the
blues do you play when soloing or comping on a blues?
1. The original three-chord basic blues?
2. The variation from the 1930s?
3. Any of the various bebop-era changes?
The answer is all of the
above. Today’s jazz musician s freely mix all versions of the blues, borrowing
and switching even in the middle of the chorus.
You might just play C7,
F7, C7 on the first four bars (from the 1930s version), play F7 and C7 on the
second four-bar phrase from (the basic blues) and then play II-V-I changes on
the last four bars (the changes from the bebop era). If you are soloing, you
can do whatever your ear, mind and soul tell you to do. If you’re comping, (the
pianist, guitarist, or bassist), your job is to listen and follow.
How do you master all this
variety? Start simple, with the three-chord blues, and add each new chord or
substitution when you can hear it
and feel ready to play it.
Best,
-- LadyD
