Bb-blues

This is a twelve-bar jazz blues in B-flat: not one composed tune but the progression that hundreds of blues heads are written over. This page has the Bb blues chords and a medium swing backing track you can use to practise soloing, comping or learning blues heads.

Who wrote "Bb blues"

Nobody in particular. The twelve-bar blues grew out of African American folk music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and no single writer can be named for it. Jazz musicians took the form and added their own chords — secondary dominants, ii-Vs and a turnaround — and this chart is that jazz version. It has no lyric and no melody: it is the frame a blues is played on.

Recordings that made it a standard

Many well-known blues heads are played over these changes in B-flat, among them:

• Sonny Rollins, "Tenor Madness" (1956) — a blues in B-flat on which Rollins and John Coltrane trade choruses.
• Sonny Rollins, "Sonnymoon for Two" (1957) — a short riff tune on the same progression.

The changes

The form is twelve bars, played here as a medium swing at 120 bpm. The first four bars are Bb9 | Eb7 | Bb9 | %: the tonic, the quick change to the IV in bar 2, and two bars back on the tonic. Bars 5 and 6 sit on Eb7, the IV, and bar 7 returns to Bb9.

Bar 8 is Dm7 G7, a ii-V that leads to C minor. In bar 9, Cm7 takes the place of the old V chord, and with F7 in bar 10 it makes the ii-V of the home key. The last two bars are a turnaround, Bb9 G7 | Cm7 F7: tonic, a secondary dominant and the ii-V again, leading back to the top.

The chart ends on F7, the dominant, so a chorus can always follow. For practice, play the roots first, then the thirds and sevenths of each chord, and then a line that moves smoothly between them. Once that is comfortable over these changes, most blues heads in B-flat will fall into place.

The jazz blues is also the best place to practise comping. Try playing each chord on beats two and four only, then in a Charleston rhythm, then with a short push before each change. A pianist or guitarist who can make twelve bars of this progression swing with a few simple voicings can accompany almost any blues head.