After Your First Bb Blues: 10 Tunes That Build on What You Already Know
If you're a jazz student, the first tune you ever blow over is almost always a blues. Twelve bars, four chords, room to play — it's how every jazz teacher in the country introduces you to improvisation, and how every jam session starts. The first time I started learning to improvise, I locked myself in a practice room and played Sonnymoon for Two until I couldn't listen to the head anymore.
But once you can comfortably solo over a Bb blues, what's the next tune?
Most lesson plans hand you something completely unrelated: So What, It Could Happen to You, a complex standard with 32 bars and ii-V-I cycles you've never seen. That works eventually, but it doesn't reward what you just spent weeks practicing. Instead, here are 10 tunes to learn next, ordered roughly from "you already know this" to "stretch goal."
1. Tenor Madness (Sonny Rollins)
Another version of a Bb blues. Learn a different head and get a different feel for the changes than just the 'blues scale.' You can absorb Coltrane and Sonny Rollins' approaches to the blues and some good recordings on YouTube. Emmet's Place's recording with Seamus Blake and Troy Roberts has tons of ideas and quotes!
2. Now's the Time / Au Privave (Charlie Parker)
Basically the same blues form. One difference: key of F. Bb and F Blues are the most common songs played at a jam session. Everyone should have them under their belt. Same thing as Bb blues just in the key of F and a different, arguably cooler-sounding blues scale.
3. Sandu (Clifford Brown)
THE Blues in Eb. Translate your blues knowledge to Eb, which is also a pretty common blues. Also listen to the OG Sandu recording on Clifford Brown & Max Roach, one of the most impactful albums of all time. Other common Eb blues tunes: Blue Train, Bessie's Blues.
4. C-Jam Blues (Duke Ellington)
Even though C Blues is a bit more uncommon than the other three keys mentioned above, it is still worth learning anyway. Good tip: 12-key everything, whether it's ii-V lines, blues, or any chord changes. That really helps to cement your knowledge of changes and lines/techniques while also getting your fingers moving. You should also study Cheryl / Relaxin' at Camarillo if you want to learn another C blues head.
5. Billie's Bounce (Charlie Parker)
A more hip F Blues built with ii-V's and a cool turnaround. Essential tune my friends and I played throughout high school band competitions while standing around, and it is the essential introduction to music theory.
6. Blues for Alice (Charlie Parker)
Level 3 of F Blues. This tune is really where you start to really learn changes and grinding in your ii-V and circle of fourths knowledge.
7. Anthropology / Oleo / Rhythm Changes
Rhythm changes: the second-most-important form in jazz after the blues. AABA, 32 bars, totally different territory, but it's also easier than you think. Just remember a bunch of I-VI-ii-V variations, and even though the bridge seems like random chords at first, you can also play ii-V's that correspond to the dominant cycle of 7th chords (also circle of 4ths!). A good Bb rhythm changes I transcribed and loved listening to was Dexter Gordon's Second Balcony Jump. If you haven't listened to Go yet, I highly recommend checking it out. Top 10 most essential jazz records ever. Learn Cotton Tail if you want Rhythm Changes in F, but Rhythm Changes usually sticks around the key of Bb.
8. Autumn Leaves
Now we're in ii-V-I territory, the building block for most jazz standards beyond the blues. After you've learned to play through blues, Autumn Leaves teaches you to apply the same skill of the last 4 bars to a 32-bar form that resolves to both a relative major and a relative minor (aka minor and major ii-V-I's).
9. There Will Never Be Another You
One of the first tunes I've learned that was actually fun at first. This is like Autumn Leaves, as there are ii-V-I's and minor ii-V-I's littered throughout the changes and a really cool turnaround to remember at the end of the chorus. This is also one of the most played jam session tunes, and like a blues, people may get mad when the 25th soloist extends their solo for an extra unneeded chorus.
10. All the Things You Are
This tune tests all the major and minor ii-V-I knowledge you have through 5 key centers. Have fun with it! Somewhat like Autumn Leaves and the blues, I would recommend inserting lines you have for major and minor ii-V-I's and memorizing the chords and melody. Given you know the other tunes above, everything should click pretty quickly.
Why this list works
A blues teaches you four core skills: holding form, improvising over dominant chords, swing phrasing, and building solos. The 10 tunes above each extend one or more of those skills. You're not starting from scratch. You're stacking on top of what you already have, but also getting to know different tunes and how different legends approach the changes along the way.
Reharmonize.app is built around this idea. The site's similarity engine surfaces tunes that share harmonic DNA (through similarity of changes and the functions of chords within changes) with anything you type in. The picks above are the ones I personally trust for actual pedagogical progression, informed by what I learned in high school and what my friends and I played at jam sessions. Try it with a tune you can already play and see what shows up for you.