Learning to navigate Blues for Alice is like taking the training wheels off the blues.

by Azmil77, Flickr.com

www.flickr.com/photos/23596957@N02/2348934926

This isn’t just I, IV, and V chords. It’s called “backdoor” blues changes because instead of going from F to Bb7, up, it goes through the backdoor, down to Em7b5 (into a ii-7b5-V7-i in the relative minor, D minor).

I can tell whether or not people have done their homework on this tune when I hear them improvise in bar 4, bar 6, and bar 8. These measures contain trick nuances, and you really can’t navigate them with straight major and minor pentatonics. Here is an etude demonstrating a solo which navigates the changes correctly! Blues for Alice is a 12 bar blues, and this etude is two choruses (plus a bar at the end). Measures 4 and 16 have the same changes. Measures 6 and 18 similarly have the same changes, as do bars and 20. Notice that in bar 4, 6, 8, 16, 18, and 20 the 3rd and/or the 7th of the new chords are played, thus highlighting the changes in harmony. This is an important concept when improvising-highlight the 3rds and 7ths of chords, particularly which the chord isn’t perfectly diatonic in the key. This will help you sound like you know what you’re doing!

You can also learn study Bird’s original solo on this website!  The link is at the bottom of this page.

.PDF of the Jazz Etude

Blues for Alice Etude-C Instruments (.pdf)

Blues for Alice Etude-Bb Trumpet

Blues for Alice Etude-Tenor Sax

Blues for Alice Etude-Eb Instruments

Blues for Alice Etude-Bass Clef

Blues for Alice pdf

Blues for Alice-C Instruments

Blues for Alice-Bb Instruments

Blues for Alice-Eb Instruments

Sweet Recordings-Check them Out!  There’s about 14, including Bird, Red Rodney, Roland Kirk, and a banjo player!

Blues for Alice Play Along

Bird plays Blues for Alice

FOR A TRANSCRIPTION OF BIRD’S SOLO, CLICK HERE!

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