New to Soloing, Odd version of Doxy

[Atticus]

We've been working on a Mark Taylor arrangement of Doxy in my school jazz band. I'm pretty comfortable with playing the chords, but our band director has said he wants a guitar to take a solo. I could just pass it off on the other guitarist, but I'd like to work on it for practice's sake if nothing else. We also mentioned trading eights or fours between the guitars. I'm not too great at soloing, being that I'm fairly new to playing, but I've got a pretty good grasp of major and melodic minor modes, just little experience with them in context.

Here's the full solo section (not quite sure what the standard is around here for formatting this ).

|Bb13 - Eb13 - |D+7(#9) - G+7(#9) - |C9 - F13 - |Bb13 - F+7 - |
|Bb13 - Eb13 - |D+7(#9) - Db13(#11) - |C9 - - - |F13 - - - |
|Bb13 - B13 - |Bb13 - - - |Eb13 - - - |E07 - - - |
|Bb13 - Eb13 - |D+7(#9) - G+7(#9) - |C9 - F13 - |Bb13 - F+7 - |

[Nuff Said]

Try restricting yourself to playing just the root, third, and 7th chord tones in any note order, but try to make musical connections between the chords.

If that fails, lots of players for many years have just noodled away on the blues scales using their ears on this tune.

Nuff

[fep]

Originally Posted by Atticus

We've been working on a Mark Taylor arrangement of Doxy in my school jazz band. I'm pretty comfortable with playing the chords, but our band director has said he wants a guitar to take a solo. I could just pass it off on the other guitarist, but I'd like to work on it for practice's sake if nothing else. We also mentioned trading eights or fours between the guitars. I'm not too great at soloing, being that I'm fairly new to playing, but I've got a pretty good grasp of major and melodic minor modes, just little experience with them in context.

Here's the full solo section (not quite sure what the standard is around here for formatting this ).

|Bb13 - Eb13 - |D+7(#9) - G+7(#9) - |C9 - F13 - |Bb13 - F+7 - |
|Bb13 - Eb13 - |D+7(#9) - Db13(#11) - |C9 - - - |F13 - - - |
|Bb13 - B13 - |Bb13 - - - |Eb13 - - - |E07 - - - |
|Bb13 - Eb13 - |D+7(#9) - G+7(#9) - |C9 - F13 - |Bb13 - F+7 - |

That's a good format...

Just curious, is this a High School or a college band?

That's not an easy progression for someone without much experience with soloing.

Easiest way I can come up with would require you to know the dominant 7th arp and a couple modes of the melodic minor scale.

Play a dominant 7th arp over the 13th chords and the C9 chord.

D+7(#9) D altered scale
G+7(#9) G altered scale
F+7 F altered scale
Db13(#11) G altered scale or Db lydian dominant (they're the same notes)
E07 E diminished arp

You can practice using the connecting exercise from Jazz Guitar Soloing by Joe Elliot. Play eight notes and only notes and change the scale arp as the chords change. So sometimes you'll only be playing four eight notes per chord change. Only eight notes, no rests. That will get you used to changing keys quickly. It's an exercise, when you actually solo you won't only play eight notes and you can take rests.

I'd suggest putting space in your solo with the chords going by that fast.

[mr. beaumont]

IT'S A DOMINANT CHORD FEAST!

Fep's ideas are quite good...I'm gonna have to play with this one myself to see what I'd do if I encountered it...cool though--something to work on, for sure!

[Nuff Said]

Here's the Dutch Bopper "Dick" having fun with the Aebersold Jazz Play-A-Long:

Dutch Bopper - YouTube

Slightly different chords on the OP version, but as always this tune can be a blues bash or Dom workout or better still both. Its always been a very popular tune at Jazz Jams.

The original version is on the "Miles Davis" "Bags Groove" album 1954.
Great Band: Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke.
Miles Davis Quintet - Doxy

Its always a good idea to listen to various versions, really getting into the tune before playing the song yourself.

Nuff

[Atticus]

Originally Posted by fep

Just curious, is this a High School or a college band?

High school. We've got a couple of really excellent soloists in our lead trombone and lead alto, and our director thinks this is the best rhythm section he's had in a long time, so he's not worried about handing out trickier tunes.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

At least Doxy isn't played fast!

Here's an idea for the first (or last) four bars:

Bb13 - Eb13 - |D+7(#9) - G+7(#9) - |C9 - F13 - |Bb13 - F+7 - |

Since the second measure is altered chords, you can think in terms of a tritone sub:

Bb13 - Eb13 - |AbAlt - Dbalt- |C9 - F13 - |Bb13 - F+7 - |

Now you've got the circle of fifths there (Bb Eb Ab Db) and the third & fourth measure repeats this, raised a whole step (C F Bb __), so if you come up with an idea or phrase for the first two measures, you can repeat it (or vary it), raised a whole step for the next two measures. That gives your playing a little instant structure.

Of course, the last chord here (F+7) is pushing you to the following Bb chord.

[fep]

I worked on this tune and I'm changing my answer. I say ignore the extensions when soloing... I think all this stuff will just fine as long as you don't sit on the 5th when the band's playing those sharp fives.

I just set up a video camera and made my first video, here it is:

YouTube Video

[Atticus]

Wow, thanks loads, fep. That's extremely helpful. I'm fiddling with your ideas and a few of the others presented- I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes in context next time we run the song in rehearsal.

[fep]

Hey Atticus, Cool - I'm glad that was helpful.

Stay posted, I'm thinking of putting something up for those middle four measures. I think you're getting thru those measures fine but just to complete the tune...