So what are some jazz blues heads that you absolutely need to know for jazz jam sessions
and gigs well today i'm going to share with you 10 that you absolutely should know coming up
so the blues is one of the most important song forms in jazz and there are a ton of blues heads
written by an array of amazing jazz musicians there's so many of them that it can be helpful
if you just know what the most important ones to learn are and some of the most common ones
to come up so let's go over those right now number one is tenor madness by sunny rollins
so tender madness is a great blues and b-flat by sunny rollins really infectious and kind of
simple melody however there's some cool bee boppy elements in there so great one to call on a jam
session and actually one of my go-to blues that i call quite often number two is bags groove
now this is a super easy blues head by vibraphonist milt jackson and it actually
only uses five notes and it's really just the f minor pentatonic scale this is actually an
f blues so really easy one to have in your back pocket in case you're ever needing to play a blues
and one that will take you really just moments to actually learn number three is blue monk
my
blue monk is a blues head by thelonious monk
so you can kind of hear some of its influence in there it's very chromatic but at the same
time it's actually not that difficult to learn either this is a very common jam
session jazz blue so do make sure that you know this one number four is berks works do
so burke's work is actually a minor blues and it's really important that you know some
minor blues heads as well this one is by dizzy gillespie again very very simple using a lot of f
minor pentatonic stuff in the melody itself so really easy one to learn as long as you know the
f blues scale or the f minor pentatonic scale number five is sandu
so so sandu is a blues by clifford brown and it's unique because it's actually in the key
of concert e flat so it's an e flat blues which isn't the most common key for blues however this
is a really really fun bluesy swinging melody to learn and it's really good to break it up a little
bit and change keys with the blues it keeps it interesting and fun and it's a challenging key
and fun key to play the blues in so that's sandu by clifford brown number six is billy's bounce
now billy's balance is what i would call an entry level bebop
head so it's a great way to get into bebop itself
learn a charlie parker head which is by charlie parker it's in concert f so another good f
blues to learn but really something to get you into bebop and enjoying bebop with the blues so
billy's bounce one that's a super big jam session tune and important to know number seven is mr pc
so mr pc is another minor blues this one's by john coltrane mr pc stands for mr paul chambers
which was paul chambers the bass player again another really great minor boost to be able to
know how to play it's in c minor however it's also a great up tempo minor blues to be able to
practice a blues that you can play actually quite quickly although you can play quite a
few of these blues up as well so that's mr pc number eight is sunny moon for two
do
moon for two is written by sunny rollins it's another one of those blues heads that is
so easy as long as you know the pentatonic scale it's in concert b-flat so if you know
the b-flat pentatonic scale all you really have to do is start at the top octave a b flat and
walk it down and you can play sunny moon for two so another great one to have in your back pocket
super easy to learn in just one practice session number nine is freight train
now freight train is actually more of a unique tune it is a bird
blues it's a charlie parker style blues it's not as popular as tunes like chi-chi or blues
for alice but it's one i wanted to mention because i personally love this tune a lot
it's on the john coltrane and kenny burrell album super be boppy and fun and it's an a flat so
great bebop bird blues to play number 10 is all blues
now all blues is a very very popular tune by miles davis
and the unique thing about this tune is it's actually in three four okay so it's a really
great tune to learn for that very reason is that you're playing in a different time signature
so really simple blues but that challenge of the three four makes it really really interesting
so these are really important jazz blues heads to learn but on the screen right now i have
another video about 10 jazz standards to learn for jam sessions you're going to want to really
know these 10 jazz standards so make sure that you click on that video make sure that you're
not missing out on any of those hope you found this video helpful make sure you like it if you
have make sure you subscribe to the channel and we'll see you in the next video cheers