Soloing on It Don’t Mean A Thing

[Bass Momma]

Any suggestions for how to solo over It Don’t Mean A Thing? I see the ii V and ii V I in the B section, and the ii V in bars 4 and 5 of the A section, but having trouble with handling the chromatic sections.
Is there a good analysis? Not much on Google.

 

[Malcolm35]

Not trying to be a smart a$& --- 12 to 18 bars of the tune will always work. Lot of time the tune can be easier than coming up with something based upon what chord you are playing over.

 

[Bass Momma]

Not trying to be a smart a$& --- 12 to 18 bars of the tune will always work. Lot of time the tune can be easier than coming up with something based upon what chord you are playing over.

True - I've learned the head, and obviously I ain't going to be playing that in the "head space", ie the start and end, so echoing it in the solo is fine. But I'm on a major effort to learn to solo over the changes (something useful has got to come out of this pandemic, right?!).

 

[Malcolm35]

Over the changes I would stick with the --- pentatonic of the chord that is active. Or...
Chord tones of the active chord, R-3-5-b7 etc.
Generic notes of the key, or chord - R-5-8-5.
The correct, major or minor 3, 7 and 9.

The guitar guy if not playing the head would be strumming the chord progression especially if a vocalist was involved, i.e He plays harmony for the vocalist until he takes his lead solo.

The bass would do the same. It's melody, harmony or rhythm. Pick out what needs doing when you are not doing the lead solo. Does someone else pick up the melody, if so augment the new soloists. There are many ways of doing that...

Happy trails.

 

[BossOnBass]

You can also stick to playing major scale notes of the I chord over that ii V I progression.

 

[dreamadream99]

having trouble with handling the chromatic sections.

The descending bass line is character. The first four measures are all just a i chord.

pentatonic of the chord...Chord tones of the active chord...Generic notes of the key, or chord

These are solid theoretical answers, but ignore the vocabulary of jazz, which is chromatic and alterations. You’d have better luck with a minor blues scale.

major scale notes of the I chord

Another good theory answer, but also doesn’t take into consideration the vocabulary of jazz. I can’t think of a single jazz song that sticks to the chord tones or key. It’s the non-chord tones, and alterations, extensions, and chromatics that are the hallmarks of the idiom.

 

[Pacman]

Any suggestions for how to solo over It Don’t Mean A Thing? I see the ii V and ii V I in the B section, and the ii V in bars 4 and 5 of the A section, but having trouble with handling the chromatic sections.
Is there a good analysis? Not much on Google.

Transcribe, transcribe, transcribe. Find a solo you like over that tune, learn it, and analyze what you like about it. Rinse and repeat.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

Any suggestions for how to solo over It Don’t Mean A Thing? I see the ii V and ii V I in the B section, and the ii V in bars 4 and 5 of the A section, but having trouble with handling the chromatic sections.
Is there a good analysis? Not much on Google.

The problem with bass soloing is that, it has to groove. Its not like guitar, where if its in key, it sounds good. You still have to groove. I usually stick to double timing arpeggios with little fill runs between.

 

[BrotherMister]

You know the melody so internalise it learn it in every key. As much as you want to play the changes never ignore the melody. You could play 4 rhythm changes back to back and what separates them is the head so it' always nice to be able to draw from that well at any given moment. Improvise with the melody and break down specific cells or building blocks of the melody and improvise with them. One of the amazing things about hearing Sonny Rollins improvise is that he spends so long learning literally no stone unturned and is like a dog with a bone. The more you dig into a single aspect the more creative you find you have to be.

You've identified the ii V progressions so isolate them and get that language together. Fortunately there is a wealth of material you can draw on since that language is ingrained into the jazz vocabulary. Your job is to find what you like, transcribe the ideas and take concepts and see what you can come up with. I'm always more interested in the concept rather than the specific line when I'm lifting stuff.

Your chord tones, for me personally, are the fundamentals. Know them and the permutations inside out because in order to play the changes you have to know whats happening on a chord. I'm not so big on the chord/scale theory as an approach to improvisation personally. Knowing the chord tones cold means you are able to resolve ideas and move from change to change. You can play an endless bunch of chromatics and sound like a musician falling down the stairs but you need to know whats going on each chord so you can highlight that. Once you've got the chord tones down then work on approaching them from below, above, above and below, two semitones below, two semitones above etc etc etc this is now moving firmly into the language that you are used to hearing.

Take one or two chords at a time and just run them to death. There is no harm in spending hours and hours on two changes and just hammering away at them until you are comfortable with them. Work through the tune that way.

After that you can play arpeggios of the changes going round the form. On the first chorus you can work on improvising over bars 1 - 4 and arpeggiating the changes for the rest of the tune. Once you are comfortable with that improve only on bars 2 - 5 and arpeggiate every other bar. etc etc etc. This will really help you dig into being able to start and end ideas at any point in the form which is a really important element of the music.

You'll hate me for this but learn to sing through the changes and the chord tones etc. This really cements the sounds into your ears and helps your play and translate the ideas you are hearing into your head on your instrument rather than just running your hands over the instrument because you know where notes are. Which is a very easy habit you can fall into on fretted instruments.

And transcribe, transcribe and transcribe!

Oh and transcribe.

 

[Bass Momma]

Thanks for all this input! On the lines of "when life gives you a pandemic, make lemonade", my teacher has me learning heads, working through Coker's Patterns For Jazz, and more. Intense and fun... trying hard to find the sweet spot between shoving in learned ii-V patterns (and all the other good stuff), and actually playing the songs.
Stay well, all!