Hi all, I sat down to practice some guitar the other day a realised i hadn’t play any jazz for a while so i thought i would have a go at playing over the classic standard Autumn Leaves. Now before i start i will admit that i am not a Jazz guitarist. I Love Jazz but i think of myself as more of a rock guy but i thought i’d let you know how i go about playing these changes. If we first look at the whole piece we notice that it is in AABC form which just means we play a section (part A) twice then another section (part B) then play a different part at the End part C)
Let’s first look at the A Section. I’m playing it in Bb although it is often played in G.
So I take the first 4 bars and just think of it in Bb major. The Chords Are
II V I IV
|Cm7 |F7 |Bbmaj7 |Ebmajor7 |
You can play Bbmajor over all for chords.
The next four bars are
|Am7b5 |D7alt |Gm |Gm |
for this i see it as a minor II V I in Gminor. So i use G harmonic minor over the Am7b5 and the D7alt Chords and G Dorian (or G Aeolian) for the Gm chord.
The B section is just the A section but switches the first and second four bars around so it
|Am7b5 |D7alt |Gm |Gm |
|Cm7 |F7 |Bbmaj7 |Ebmajor7 |
The C section starts with the same minor ii V in Gminor but in Bar three and four it does a chromatic chord line with
|Gm7 Gb7 |Fm7 E7 |
for this you can use G dorian to play over Gm7 and Gb7 then F dorian over Fm7 and E7
then it finishes with
|Am7b5 |D7alt |Gm |Gm |
which is the same as the second four bars of the A section.
To kinda recap for the most part you are playing either Bb Major or G minor (Dorian and Harmonic). Get those two scales down and you should be fine to play over Autumn Leaves.
See Below for the complete chords and a video of me trying to solo over the changes. Have Fun!!! I hope this made some sense!
