Killer Joe Jazz Guitar Chord Study

A fun and interesting chord progression, the tune Killer Joe is a commonly called jazz standard on jam sessions and gigs. While the tune looks easy from an initial look at the chords, especially the A sections which are only two chords, it can be tricky to keep things from becoming monotonous when playing over these changes.

Below you will find a chord study written out over the changes to Killer Joe that uses melodic comping phrases to outline the changes. This keeps things interesting and prevents the tune from becoming predictable.

What’s In this Killer Joe Chord Study

There is text written under many of the chords in the tune. This text is to indicate the chords used in that part of the chord study.

Here is a bit of background on each of these chord concepts that you can use to understand the underlying theoretical building blocks of the chord study. From there, you can use these concepts to build chord studies over this tune and other tunes.

Lenny Breau Chords – These chords are inspired by the playing of the late, great Lenny Breau. They use the 3^rd and 7^th as the lowest two notes, or 7^th and 3^rd, with one color note placed on top of those notes to form the whole chord shape.

Rootless 13^th Chords – Built by taking the root out of the 7^th chord, and adding the 13^th and most of the time the 9^th, these shapes were a favorite of Joe Pass and are a great way to spice up your comping ideas.

7alt Chords – When playing over dominant 7^th chords, and you want to add a level of tension to your playing, you can add in the altered notes to your chords (b9-#9-b5-#5). This will create a sense of tension that you can then resolve to the next chord in the tune.

Drop 2 Chords – Built with the interval structure R-5-7-3, with inversions created from that root-position shape, drop 2 chords are some of the most commonly used shapes in jazz guitar.

4^th Chords – Quartal chords are built by stacking 4^th intervals, rather than the traditional 3^rd intervals, to create three and sometimes four-note shapes on the guitar.

Closed Chords – Closed shapes are built by placing all of the chords in the order that they appear, such as 1-3-5-7, and are sometimes inverted from that beginning position.

Dim7 Chords – When outlining 7b9 shapes, you can play dim7 chords from the b9, 3, 5 and b7 of the dominant 7^th chord in order to build a rootless 7b9 sound in your playing.

Bluesy Drop 2 Chords – These shapes are built by adding blues and other diatonic notes on top of drop 2 chords in order to create a bluesy sound in your comping ideas.

 

Killer Joe Chord Study

Here is the full chord study for you to practice.

Each 8-bar phrase has been written to be a unique part of the tune as a whole, which means that you will be able to isolate each 8-bar phrase, learn it on its own, and then combine them all to form the tune as a whole.

You can use your fingers to play these chords, or a pick, or hybrid pick-fingerpicking when learning this chord study.

Whatever works for you and is the most comfortable will work as long as it allows you to play the chords smoothly and accurately.

 

 

 

 

Killer Joe Backing Track

To help you learn this Killer Joe Jazz Guitar Chord Study in the woodshed, here is a short backing track that you can use to play along with in the practice room.

Note that the track is at a performance tempo, a bit quick when first learning the study, so work these chords with a metronome first and then move on to this track when you have the study memorized at a good tempo.

 

 

Further Reading

Summertime Jazz Guitar Chord Study

Blue Bossa Jazz Guitar Chord Study

 

Do you have any questions about this Killer Joe Jazz Guitar Chord Study? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.