List your favorite + least favorite tunes to solo on

[emanresu]

Hey.

After so many years (a credibility statement here), I've reached a conclusion that some tunes's chords are good for soloing,
but some are pretty much useless and shouldn't be even attempted.

I mean, you can solo on anything. A wasp's flyby if you want.

So. What is your favorite tune to solo, and the least favorite?
Can be a list - more fun.

We can try these out and disagree, of course.

[deacon Mark]

One of my favorite tunes to improvise on is Lazybird by Coltrane and played famously by Pat Martino on his recording east. The tune moves actually similar to Cherokee and does not need to be taking at quite the pace he did (260) but slower ok. It allows going through changes and interesting movement not static in key centers. Have you Met Miss Jones another good one.

There are many tunes I would like to not improvise on at all, but they generally fall into slower ballads with a lot of changes. Round Midnight is tough for me I find hard to say much more. My One and Only Love...............I just won't solo on it.

[PMB]

I first read that as "So What" is your favourite tune solo...

As far as GAS tunes are concerned, I've been getting a lot of mileage out of I Thought About You over the last couple of years.

[rpjazzguitar]

Any tune where I can feel the changes and don't have to think about math is fine with me. So, most tunes are fine with me. I can't pick a favorite.

There are tunes with unpredictable, hard to hear, harmony that are very difficult to solo over. Haja Curacao by Hermeto Pascoal comes to mind. Podicre by Deborah Gurgel is a great tune, but hard to solo on.

[emanresu]

In jazz, the chords are written down by the A7s, Dm7s. No details.
Sometimes those are half or more of the musical message.But it is hard to weigh the impact most of the time.
But yes, sometimes the harmony written in "hazy" A7s or Dm7s is already conveying a musical message. Easy to solo on.
Other times, the chords follow the musical meanings of the melody and people try to solo on and just fail while the reception is favorable.

[Mick-7]

My goal is to transcend favorites, I'd like to be able to solo well on any tune that I know, but as rpjg mentioned, there are some tunes with unusual harmony that have asocial personalities.

[JazzPadd]

What an evocative dichotomy, thanks! For favorites, I prefer standards with more or less diatonic, or closely related to diatonic melodies, but with interesting changes under them, and for those songs that I'm not so fond of soloing over, I'd say it'd be the modal songs.

On the interesting changes side, I like the songs that can fit in a little blues sensibility, too, especially using dom. 7 or major 7 notes, sharp 9 / flat 3rd over major chords and progressions. Words don't do justice to what I'm trying to express, so here's an example.

I am currently working on, and have been for some months, "Like Someone in Love" (1944 Van Heusen / Burke). I love the changes and modulations. Some of it is intuitive, usual ii V stuff, but the substitutions and modulations are interesting enough that I really had to work out ways to navigate through them. I'm not much more than an occasional amateur player, so I am sure others approach things more systematically, but I kind of enjoy stumbling around in the dark a little while trying to internalize a tune. I first heard it done by the Jazz Messengers in IIRC Eb or Ab, and there's a Coltrane version in one or another of those two keys. But I play almost entirely at open jazz jam sessions and what keeps those jam sessions from devolving into train wrecks is an agreed upon baseline in terms of versions and charts. For me, here in Japan, that's the Jazz Standard Bible, which has this tune in C (which as far as I can tell is more of the vocal version), but instead of quibbling over keys, we submit to the agreed upon charts in the interest of playing jazz together. Granted, a gig with rehearsals and audiences to please, and varieties of player opinions, might differ. So I've been working through the tune in C, and looking for ways to, for example, use the Eb / D# as a blues note but also as an altered dominant note, or using both the B and Bb in lines. The particulars of the theory surrounding this practice doesn't interest me as much as the sound I heard from listening to the tune on records. There are probably countless tunes that fit this bill, but suffice to say that's my fun way.

On the not so much fun side of things are the modal tunes or two chord vamp fusiony kinds of things. Although I play them when called at jams and some are actually a lot of fun (like "Impressions," which I enjoy trying to smoothly weave into the signature Dm - Ebm modulation), I feel like I flounder without having changes to inspire and guide my creativity. I know, we can substitute anything in terms of changes over a modal tune, but I prefer songs that were actually written with changes and melody hand in hand. There's another jazz jam nearby (there are five venues that hold them nearby, each with its own character) and that one is led by top notch pianist, he does recording and gigs a lot, and he really likes to play funky modal tunes, and crossover tunes and such. I go to the jam once in a while, but while others are having a blast blowing over 1 or 2 chords, I usually just play a little and let someone else take it. The pianist said to me one night that I can take longer solos if I like. Imagine that, having to tell a guitarist to take LONGER solos! In any case, perhaps my proclivity to submitting to structure for lack of better words comes from my dabbling in film music composition, where there are strict limitations to fit into, and it is these limitations, prescribed by someone else, that I find can breed creativity.

But this is a very interesting question, because it is about our own personal preferences, not so much about what is best or common or the right or wrong way to do things, so I hope others will share some particulars of the songs they like and dislike soloing over.

[emanresu]

Some of them stall all the time. Like Stella.
Yesterdays is a moving one. Four too. Perfect for impro.
Giant Steps is like a stick in ones behind - moves but the trail is so tight. No room for alternate path even when played slowly.

[emanresu]

I’m a little sad that this thread didn’t attract much attention—not out of ego, but because I think the question behind it really matters.

People often talk about things like the blues form (whatever that exactly means) or rhythm changes as if those structures themselves are brilliant. And I can see why. But in the end, there are also the tunes.

When I first dove head-first into learning to improvise, I didn’t think much about the quality of the tune. I didn’t worry about whether a song was especially beautiful or well-crafted. If I knew a tune, I would use it to practice soloing. Simple as that.

But over time I started to notice something: the way the chords move in a tune can make a huge difference. Some progressions simply don’t seem to carry or inspire a solo very well. They don’t give the music enough emotional or harmonic momentum for a really expressive improvisation.

I used to believe in the idea that “the guitar doesn’t play — you do,” and that you don’t need a $100,000 audiophile setup just to enjoy music, just like you don’t need a Rolls-Royce to get to Goodwill. The tune and the chords are there, waiting for someone to create something heavenly on top of them.

But maybe that isn’t entirely true. Maybe to get a great solo — or even an above-average one — you also need a set of chords that is well thought out, rich, and inspiring in the first place.

What do you think?

*i let AI to put it in nice english.
**not to troll. but to avoid confusion
***maybe a bit to troll too

[Mick-7]

But maybe that isn’t entirely true. Maybe to get a great solo — or even an above-average one — you also need a set of chords that is well thought out, rich, and inspiring in the first place.

To illustrate your point, it might help if you list tunes you like to improvise on.

[emanresu]

Atm Yesterdays and Four

[GuyBoden]

Atm Yesterdays and Four

I think Yesterdays is a great song to play over too.

I even played it last week, here I am in Blue:

[befiddled]

I’m a little sad that this thread didn’t attract much attention—not out of ego, but because I think the question behind it really matters.

People often talk about things like the blues form (whatever that exactly means) or rhythm changes as if those structures themselves are brilliant. And I can see why. But in the end, there are also the tunes.

When I first dove head-first into learning to improvise, I didn’t think much about the quality of the tune. I didn’t worry about whether a song was especially beautiful or well-crafted. If I knew a tune, I would use it to practice soloing. Simple as that.

But over time I started to notice something: the way the chords move in a tune can make a huge difference. Some progressions simply don’t seem to carry or inspire a solo very well. They don’t give the music enough emotional or harmonic momentum for a really expressive improvisation.

Though I’m just seeing it for the first time, I’d like to see this thread get more attention as well - lots of it would be good. I’m new to posting here but I’ve visited a fair bit over the years and this type of thread is often interesting and useful. Being relatively new to improvising music (though not playing music), I’m still quite enamored with what are likely some of the more hackneyed pieces. Especially, the medium tempo ballads like Autumn Leaves, ATTYA, Beautiful Love, etc. The fact that these pieces have a lot of harmonic movement, somehow makes make more sense to me and makes it easier for me to keep my place.