What are lead sheets all about?

[RTanke]

Hello!

I'm a 17 year old classically trained piano player, playing for about three years now. Recently, I have been playing a bit of rhythmic music, and I really want to play jazz.
Jazz is mainly what I listen to, and I have looked up the lead sheets for some standards that I want to work with. The problem is... I don't really know how to attack them

For example, let's say I want to start out with All Blues:

Image of Notation removed by moderator

I get the first 8 bars - from what I understand, that's pretty straightforward. But from the 9th bar there's only noted a simple melody in the right hand and chords in the left hand. Should I just play the chords given as they are, or are they meant to be more of a guideline for improvising? In that case: how do I know which scales should I use? Also, what is the significance of the G7 and C7 symbols (respectively in the 1st and 5th bar)?

Or to put it in a more general way: How do you approach a lead sheet?


I'm a total newbie when it comes to playing jazz, but I'm pretty sturdy in music theory.
All help is much appreciated!

[Jeff Smith]

Lead sheet gives you song form, chord changes, and melody (head). What more is there to say? Approach it however you want. Apply some concept to make it sound like what you want it to sound like. If you want to play jazz, you must listen to jazz until you are quite familiar with what it sounds like.

As far as the significance of the chords you asked about, this tune "All Blues" is a really straightforward 12 bar blues in 6/8 time. You need to know about blues form and feel to play jazz, so get cracking. First listen to the jazz tunes from the lead sheets and you'll figure out what to do. Just realize that nobody knows or has ever known everything about jazz. As the tired cliche says, "it's a journey, not a destination".

[raymb1]

Just like you were classically trained, you would benefit greatly from a good jazz teacher. Later, Ray

[edrowland]

The 2nd line in this particular leadsheet is very atypical. Usually only chords and melody are provided as a very broad guideline. Leadsheets are only a very broad sketch of the melody and harmony, and form of the piece being played. As a jazz pianist you would be expected to improvise an accompaniment on the fly, using supplied chords as a guide.

In this particular leadsheet, the 2nd line provides a figure that's usually played by accompanists and/or horns on the first, and last time through the piece. There's also a well known bass line not provided here that the bassist would play. These figures may be repeated, or elaborated on, or ommitted altogether during subsequent solos. As a pianist you would either double the bass line, or the horn line. But you really need to know both.

The 2nd line disappears at bar 9 because, at that point, you're expected to return to default mode, and supply your own accompaniment. Horn players would typically harmonize on the fly, based on the given melody and chords from bar 9 onward, if they're playing at all.

It would help enormously to listen to existing recordings of this piece. To play this piece properly, you really need to come to it with some significant understanding of how the original version goes -- either the original Miles Davis version, or any of many recordings by others. That too is typical of jazz leadsheets: one needs to come to the tune with a little more than just the leadsheet.


It should be pretty obvious from any recording you listen to how the D7#9 Eb7#9 D7#9 are expected to be played by accompanists. There's really no need for further elaboration on the leadsheet. The remaining two bars of G7 are a gross simplification. Most decent players would know the standard treatment and extended chord progression that fits over the G7 in the first repeat of the original -- either from having worked it out from the original recording, or having played it before. (Dm11 / Em11 | Dm11/ G9) In this particular leadsheet, it shows G7 all the way through, which jazz players would not read as "play G7 all the way through", but instead, as a wide-open invitation to explore interesting and innovative ways to play a turnaround on a blues progression on the second and subsequent repeats (preferrably after having played the standard progression on the first time through).

Since you asked.

That being said, it's pretty good tune to start with: a great melody, with an amazing groove, intersting harmony, over a blues form (which is good for beginners). And it's not too difficult to get a sense of what you're supposed to be doing from existing recordings. The only downside: use of quartal harmony in the last two bars of the piece when taking a standard approach to it, which may or may not make it a bit challenging to understand the theory of what's going on in the last four bars. But it *IS* a blues form, so you don't actually need to know the theory to brute-force it through the last four bars.

[Tenorman]

Hi guys,
I have removed the music notation from post 1.

We stay on the safe side of the copyright rules, and display of copyright material on a website is the equivalent of publishing, and could leave us open to a complaint from the copyright holder

[engelbach]

RTanke,

Welcome to the AAJ Forum.

All Blues is an atypical lead sheet, as this tune calls for a specific accompaniment, an ostinato figure. More typical lead sheets for standards expect you to improvise your own accompaniment from the chord symbols.

There are two general kinds of chord voicings for improvising the left hand.

When playing solo, one usually uses some form of shell voicings. This consists of the bass note of the chord plus additional notes, usually at least including the third or the seventh of the chord.

When playing with a bass player, one usually omits the bass note and plays rootless voicings, which consist of three or four notes of the chord played in a close block.

You can find more information on the Web under those two headings, which will give you an idea of what notes to use and how to play chords in sequence for a smooth harmonic flow.

Here are two sites for a quick overview:
Shell Voicings
Rootless Voicings

Cheers,
Jer