ideas for pop or rock tunes to jazz up?

[Eric Wade]

For rock music, my bet is Childish Gambino 2010 New Prince (Crown on the Ground). It sounds like Hip-Hop and serves as one of the best samples in rock history.

[destinytot]

Cue banjolele:

[Stevebol]

Stevie Wonder thread

[jameslovestal]

I assume the OP wants to find sheet music for rock\pop songs that one can play as instrumental jazz tunes.

For something basic I like The Doors, Riders on the Storm; the chords are simple but they can be jazzed up and with a solid grove I enjoy soloing over the changes.

Another tune is The Beatles, Here, There and Everywhere. For this tune I changed all basic chords; E.g. G to Gmaj7, the Am, Bm chords to minor6, the C to Cmaj6 and the F to Fm7b5 resolving to B7. When I first did this I kept it fairly basic (6th or 5th sting root based chords), but of course overtime used inversions (especially when there is a piano player holding down the bass progression). There is a lot of room for soloing and one can make up their own melodies while also throwing in some of the counterpoint George does on the recording.

I also recommend Paint it Black; now I play this with a rocker that sings well and we do the song very similar to the Stones, but then we vamp over the Em \ B7 part. Cool way to get in some E harmonic minor sounds and some Django type riffs.

Finally; Just take a rock\pop tune you love, alter the chords and make a rhythm track. From there let your fingers do the walking.