THE CHALLENGE

A new improviser is staring at a page of music with over 30 chord symbols and is so intimidated by them that he can't keep his train of thought. He gets lost and is frustrated beyond words. Another young musician sits in at a jazz club when the combo calls Moten Swing. "But I've never played Moten Swing," she says, panic setting in. "Relax," a veteran band member tells her. "The tune's in Ab, with a bridge in C. You'll hear it." And sure enough, when she improvises her solo using the Ab major scale, switching to the C major scale for the bridge, it sounds all right!

In whose shoes would you rather be? Which student will enjoy jazz and thus remain interested enough to eventually learn more about chord symbols, scales, and lyrical improvisation?

THE SOLUTION: Cutting the Changes!

Chord symbols should inform you as to what key center you're in at that moment: they indicate a progression of tension and release in that key. It's possible to begin improvising over large groupings of major key centers rather than over 40 chord symbols.

From the early days of swing music into bebop, "cutting sessions" were jam sessions in which players tried to outdo one another in tempo, range, and whether or not they could handle the rapid chord progressions—"cut the changes"—of the tunes. In this book we have our own cutting session: we cut chord symbols completely out of the initial picture!

The major-scale key-center approach is also particularly valuable for jazz vocalists, who lack other instruments' valves or keypads for assistance in technical accuracy. Aspiring jazz singers can often relate to the major scales over a given progression.