Matador is the title track of a legendary session Grant Green recorded in 1964, though it wasn’t released until 1979 on the Japanese Blue Note label. It’s one of those albums that flew under the radar for a long time but holds some of Green’s strongest playing. The lineup on the record is great as well: McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Bob Cranshaw on bass.

Unlike many of his more well-known soul-jazz tracks, Matador has a more open vibe, showing another side of his playing.

In this lesson, you will learn the melody of Matador. Groovy and fun to play, the melody is almost entirely in the C natural minor scale.

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Matador Guitar Pro 8 File

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Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue is one of the most iconic soul-jazz guitar standards ever recorded. Released in 1963 on Blue Note Records, the track is the title cut of Burrell’s classic album Midnight Blue, featuring Stanley Turrentine (tenor sax), Major Holley (bass), Billy Gene English (drums), and Ray Barretto (congas). If you’re into a smooth and bluesy jazz guitar sound, Midnight Blue is a must-learn.

Midnight Blue was recorded at the legendary Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey. Burrell’s sound and playing on the track have influenced generations of jazz and blues guitarists. Artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and George Benson have cited Burrell as a key influence.

In this lesson, you will learn how to play the intro and melody of the tune, as well as an improvised solo.

Midnight Blue is a great study in how less can be more.

The melody of Midnight Blue is fairly straightforward, although the B section can be tricky and harder to get under your fingers because of the chords.

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

This improvised solo is inspired by Kenny Burrell’s vocabulary, mixing blues phrasing, chromatic passing tones, scales, and arpeggios.

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Midnight Blue Guitar Pro 8 File

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Charlie Chaplin, famous for making people laugh, was also good at making music. He composed “Smile” for his last silent movie “Modern Times” in 1936 with the help of composer David Raksin.

The first phrase of the melody is identical to a phrase (Cavaradossi singing “Quale occhio al mondo può star di paro”) in the first act love duet from Tosca, Puccini’s opera.

In 1954, lyrics were added to the melody by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons. Nat King Cole recorded the first version with these lyrics and reached #10 on the Billboard charts.

This chord melody arrangement of Smile uses drop 2 and drop 3 chords, combined with 6ths (more about guitar intervals).

Recommended listening:

Listen & Play-Along

Smile Guitar Pro 8 File

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Alone Together was composed by Arthur Schwartz in 1932 and featured in the Broadway musical Flying Colors. In this lesson, you will learn how to play the melody mixed with chords.

Alone Together has a bit of an unusual form because it has a length of 44 bars instead of 32 as is usual with AABA standards (the first two A sections are 14 bars long instead of 8).

Recommended Listening:

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Alone Together Guitar Pro 8 File

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In a Sentimental Mood is a famous jazz standard composed and recorded by Duke Ellington in 1935. In this lesson, you will learn the melody of In a Sentimental Mood and a solo over its chord changes (with some Emily Remler vocabulary mixed in).

The original recording and many other recorded versions are in F major, with a bridge going to Db major. Duke Ellington’s version with John Coltrane is in Db major.

Recommended Listening:

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

In a Sentimental Mood Guitar Pro File

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Make You Feel My Love was written by Bob Dylan for his album Time Out of Mind (1997). The song became a bit of a modern standard and was covered by more than 450 artists including Billy Joel, Garth Brooks, and Adele.

Creating guitar instrumentals of pop songs is a good exercise in reharmonization, phrasing, and recognizing melodic patterns.

The melody of Make You Feel My Love is built on a rhythmic and melodic pattern that is repeated throughout the entire song.

It’s a good idea to get catchy phrases like these under your fingers to use them in your own jazz solos (like you learn in our course Jazz Guitar Patterns & Phrases Volume 1).

In this lesson, you will learn how to play an instrumental version of Bob Dylan’s iconic song, both the chords and the melody.

The entire melody is in the C# major scale, in these two positions:

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Make You Feel My Love (Melody) Guitar Pro 8 File

The chords (more of a bassline really) are based on Ane Brun’s version of Make You Feel My Love and consist of a combination of bass notes and voice leading.

Listen & Play-Along

Make You Feel My Love (Chords) Guitar Pro 8 File

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Nature Boy was written by eden ahbez (his real name was George Alexander Aberle) in 1947 and recorded by Nat King Cole in 1948. Cole’s recording became a no 1 hit for eight weeks and sold over a million of copies. In this lesson, you will learn how to play the melody and chords of Nature Boy.

eden ahbez (he didn’t capitalize his name) was a member of the “Nature Boys”, a group of nomadic hippies that wore long hair and beards and ate only raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts. At the time of the release of Nature Boy, eden was living under the L of the Hollywood sign in LA.

Recommended listening:

The melody of Nature Boy is almost entirely in the A natural minor scale, except for bars 5-6 and 21-22 where it follows the line cliché (A-G#-G-F#).

Listen & Play-Along

Nature Boy Melody Guitar Pro 8 File

Most chords in this arrangement are basic jazz guitar chords. The rhythm takes some time to get used to but is easy to play once you get it under your fingers.

Listen & Play-Along

Nature Boy Chords Guitar Pro 8 File

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Fly Me to the Moon is one of the most famous and recognizable jazz standards ever. In this lesson, you will learn how to play the chords and chord progression of this popular song.

In the chord study below, you will mostly learn basic jazz guitar chords and voicings such as minor 7, major 7, dominant 7, and half-diminished 7.

But, you will also learn chord voicings with extensions, such as minor 9, minor 11, dominant 9, dominant 7b9, dominant 7#9, suspended chords, 6/9 chords, and diminished chords over dominants.

I kept the rhythm as simple as possible, as kind of a pop ballad, so you can concentrate on smoothly switching between the chords and getting the voicings under your fingers.

I end the chord study with a typical jazz ending (bar 31).

Instead of the dominant (G7) going to the tonic (Cmaj7), it goes first to the bVI (Abmaj7) and then the bII (Dbmaj7), before finishing on the I (C6/9).

This is called modal interchange, the bVI is borrowed from the relative minor key (Aeolian), and the bII is borrowed from the Phrygian mode.

Listen & Play-Along

Fly Me to the Moon Chords Guitar Pro 8 File

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In this lesson, you will learn how to play the chords of Blue Bossa and a bossa nova rhythm pattern. One of the most common non-swing rhythms that jazz guitarists often play is the bossa nova groove. but learning how to play an authentic bossa or samba groove on the guitar can be tricky.

To help you get a handle on how to play an authentic groove over any Brazilian jazz tune, I’ve put together two chord studies featuring a popular Samba/Bossa groove that you should get under your fingers.

While you are probably familiar with major 7 chords and minor 7 chords, it is very common in Brazilian music to use maj9 and m9 chords instead. These m9 chords have a bit of a “softer” sound than maj7 and m7 chords and help create the smooth-sounding quality that we associate with bossa nova.

In these chord studies, you will notice that the thumb plays bass notes on 1 and 3 of each bar, mostly the root note alternated with the 5th to create some movement.

In this first Blue Bossa chord study, I play a typical bossa nova rhythm guitar pattern on acoustic guitar.

Notice that bossa nova chord patterns always have the following specifics:

Drum Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

Blue Bossa Chord Study 1 Guitar Pro File

The next chord study is very similar to the first, but played on acoustic guitar and has some variations here and there.

Listen & Play Along

Blue Bossa Chord Study 2 Guitar Pro File

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Autumn Leaves is a timeless jazz standard recorded by numerous jazz legends, making it a must-know tune for any aspiring jazz guitar player. In this guitar lesson, you will learn a beginner-friendly chord arrangement of Autumn Leaves.

This arrangement mainly uses drop 2 and drop 3 chords, two kinds of basic chord shapes that are essential for every jazz guitarist.

Drop 2 and drop 3 chords are commonly used in jazz guitar playing and by learning these voicings, you will add more variety to your guitar playing.

By learning the chords of Autumn Leaves you will familiarize yourself with a classic jazz standard while also expanding your knowledge of jazz harmony and chord progressions.

The harmony of Autumn Leaves is a great example of major and minor ii V I progressions, the bread and butter of jazz music.

This chord study is an excerpt of our course Jazz Standards 101 – Autumn Leaves (click below for more information).

Listen & Play-Along

Here are the guitar chord charts for every voicing used in the Autumn Leaves arrangement.

Autumn Leaves Easy Chords Guitar Pro File

This chord study is an excerpt of our course Jazz Standards 101 – Autumn Leaves (click below for more information).

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