Blues Connotation (Ornette Coleman)

Blues Connotation (also known as P.S. Unless One Has) is the opening track of Ornette Coleman’s fifth studio album, This Is Our Music, released in 1960. In this lesson, you will learn how to play the melody on guitar. It’s a fun tune that’s comfortable to play and very approachable for guitarists.

Blues Connotation is a great example of how Coleman blends familiar jazz forms with his own unique harmonic and rhythmic ideas.

The song uses a traditional 12-bar jazz blues progression in Bb, but with a twist: bar 11 is shortened to 2/4 during the theme.

This rhythmic shift is typical of Coleman’s music, respecting jazz traditions while pushing the boundaries.

The original recording is quite fast at about 264 BPM. For this lesson, I slowed it down to 180 BPM, making it easier to hear the phrasing and play it comfortably on guitar.

 

Recommended listening:

• Ornette Coleman – This is Our Music (1960)
• Chick Corea – The Beginning (1970)
• Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea – Play (1992)
• John Abercrombie – Within A Song (2012)
• Roben Ford (with Bill Frisell) – City Life (2013)
• Christian McBride (with Mike Stern) – The Q Sessions (2021)
• Julian Lage – Live

 

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Blues Connotation – Video

 

Blues Connotation – Notation/Guitar Tabs

Although the melody contains several arpeggios and chromatic ideas, it is largely based on the Bb minor pentatonic scale.

Here is a breakdown of the main melodic devices found in the head:

• The melody opens with a pedal tone F (5th of Bb) combined with a chromatic phrase.
• Bar 3 starts with the Bb minor pentatonic scale and ends with an F minor triad.
• In bar 5, the Bb minor pentatonic scale is used over Eb7.
• In bars 6 to 8, a Gm7♭5 arpeggio is used over Bb7.
• Bar 9 uses the Bb minor pentatonic scale over Cm7. The phrase concludes in bar 10 with a pedal tone Bb combined with a chromatic phrase.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play-Along

 

 

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