So what are some great jazz standards to learn for playing jazz gigs well today i'm
gonna go over eight jazz standards you need to know coming right up
so i'm gonna walk you through a set list that i would make for one of
my gigs not only am i gonna go through the tunes and why i choose them for my
set list i'm also gonna talk about why they are important for you to know now we're
gonna start off the set with something with a little bit more energy something
swinging something a lot of fun and so we're gonna do my shining hour by harold arlen
so my shining hour is a fantastic study of one
six to five chord progressions which is a super common chord progression in jazz so
understanding this tune is gonna really give you a big advantage with other ones as well it's a
great study of relative keys so the major key being e flat major and then the minor key being
c minor so a common movement in jazz harmony i love how in the bridge it goes to the iv chord but
then also moves to this minor right here almost giving it this shift to the minor key feeling for
a second so my shining hour is a really great tune to learn and a great way to start off a gig okay
now for the second song we want to keep the energy going keep the crowd interested so we are going
to move into a more minor bluesy kind of tune so we're going to play softly as in a morning sunrise
so softly as a morning sunrise great study of minor 251 chord progressions you have the c
minor parent key with that minor two five one but also there's a lot of really cool
chord substitutions that you can use to get around that turn around with the two five one
so that's a great studying of itself and kind of the inverse of what my shining hour was is for
the a section you actually have the minor key the parent minor key but in the bridge it goes to e
flat major which is the relative major key so it's another great study as well of
passing diminished chords i find diminished chords can be a little bit tricky to navigate
as far as improvisation goes so studying a tune like this is really gonna help all
right for song number three we need to change the mood up a little bit get something a little
more introspective and a little bit different so we're gonna play beatrice by sam rivers
now beatrice is a good example of mixing modal harmony with functional diatonic harmony so it
starts in f major which is technically the key center but there's lots of these interesting half
step chromatic moving major seventh chords like in bar number two and then when we have this f
major again we transition it with an e flat major chromatically moving down to the d minor the vi
chord which again rotates between the d minor and the e flat so lots of interesting chromatic
movement as well these interesting side step two fives would definitely come up in jazz a lot
and then we go to this a minor with a three chord and again a chromatic moving major seventh chord a
half step away so this happens a lot in this tune so that's why we call it a mixture of modal and
functional harmony again example in the end here g minor g flat major to f minor to g flat major
so beatrice is a great study of this mixture of a type of tune okay now at this point we really need
to bring the energy way back up and so we're gonna do is we're gonna play an up tempo tune every gig
should have at least one up tempo tune and then what i'm gonna do is all the things you are
now whether you're playing all the things you are fast slow or medium tempo it's just a really
enjoyable tune to improvise over i particularly like that it goes through five different key
centers a flat major c major e flat major g major and then finally in the bridge goes to e major so
that keeps it really interesting for me and just a lot of fun to solo over it's a great
study of chords cycling in force so that's something else that you should consider
and it is a challenging tune but knowing this tune will really
help you in all the rest of your other improvisations now by the way if you need
any help learning any of these jazz standards i highly recommend picking up my free guide called
learn jazz standards the smart way you can find it at learnjazzstandardsthesmartway.com
completely free will help you cut down the amount of time it takes to learn a
jazz standard help you so you don't get lost and so that you never forget them
okay for song number five let's bring the energy way way down and
every single gig should also have a ballad so we're going to slow the tempo down and play misty
now misty is one of the most commonly known ballads that i'm aware of so one of those that
you absolutely have to know just for the sake that it's going to be called a lot but i also
think it has really interesting harmony i love how it goes to the iv chord but then has this backdoor
dominant that goes to the e flat again at the top backward dominance important harmonic function
in jazz to be aware of as well as just showing you how to play great turnarounds though three
six two five i also think it's really interesting that in the bridge it goes to the four chord so
it sounds like you're in the key center of a flat but then it has this interesting a minor d7 that
makes it sound like you're in a new key for a second before going to b-flat and eventually
making its way back to the e-flat so there's a lot of harmonic movement i wouldn't say it's
an easy ballad but it's a really important one to know now for song number six we've really brought
the energy down a lot so now let's bring it back up and i like to do that with a medium
tempo tune that swings really hard so we're gonna do there is no greater love
this is just one of those feel-good tunes definitely one that is called a lot it's in
b-flat major and it has a lot of just traditional jazz harmony with the one four three six
uh the dominant two chord hanging out there for a while before going to the
minor two chord happens all the time in jazz so being familiar with that is great
this is another great example of a tune that goes between relative keys the relative
major apparent major in this case and then the relative minor which is g minor in the bridge
so lots of opportunity to play balloozy stuff and lots of opportunity to play great
traditional jazz lines for song number seven once again i want to change up the feel a little bit of
the gig so we're gonna go to a modal tune and we're gonna play impressions by john coltrane
now impressions is actually a contra fact of the miles davis composition so what so it's really
just based off of two chords it's based off of d minor and it's based off of e flat minor and
the idea is that over the d minor you're playing more d dorian modal ideas and e flat dorian ideas
knowing this modal harmony is a great idea for trying to force yourself to be creative as
well as the practice of keeping your spot in the form because it's easy to get lost when you only
have two chords to play with so this is a great practice in that in of itself okay one more song
to go before we go to that one i want to hear from you in the show notes or the comments below if you
only had eight songs to play for your set which jazz standards would you choose so give me your
eight song jazz standard set list let me know love to hear your thoughts alright so we're at the last
song of the gig now there is almost no better way in my opinion to end a gig with some high energy
on a blues so absolutely let's go ahead and do a blues i'm gonna play tenor madness by sunny
rollins what more can i say about the blues other than you really should be able to play in all
12 keys know it super well because it's like the foundation of jazz and jazz improv know the blues
inside and out and honestly you're gonna have an amazing advantage over all other jazz standards
learn a ton of different blues heads as well tenor madness is just one of them
have a bunch in your arsenal and you'll be set to go blue is always an amazing
way to end a jazz gig if you want another list of jazz standards to learn as well
i have a video on the screen right now that you can click into it's called 10 must-know
jazz standards for jam sessions ones that are commonly called in jam sessions so go watch
that video right now to learn another set of 10 jazz standards that's all for today's video make
sure you like this video if you found it valuable subscribe and we'll see you in the next one cheers