Workshop 5 mini-test

1. What are the three basic chords in C blues?

2. What happens at bar 5?

3. What happens at bar 9?

4. What is a quick-change blues?

5. What are the three local blue-third resolutions?

6. Why might Gm7-C7 appear in bar 4?

7. What does F♯°7 do between F7 and C7/G?

8. Why is A7 useful around bar 8?

9. What is a jazzier bars 9–12 progression?

10. What must remain true even when jazz harmony becomes sophisticated?

Answers

1. C7, F7, G7 — I7, IV7, V7.
2. The harmony moves to IV7, F7.
3. The harmony reaches V7, G7 in the basic form.
4. Bar 2 moves briefly to IV7 before returning to I7.
5. E♭→E over C7, A♭→A over F7, B♭→B over G7.
6. It is a ii–V leading into F7 at bar 5.
7. It creates chromatic bass F→F♯→G and smooth voice leading into C7/G.
8. A7 is V7/ii, preparing Dm7.
9. Dm7 | G7 | C7 A7 | Dm7 G7.
10. The groove, phrasing, I–IV–V identity, blues inflections, and 12-bar form must still sound like blues.

The key lesson of Workshop 5 is:

Jazz blues is sophisticated because it can imply many harmonic routes while the listener still feels the same simple 12-bar blues underneath.

The next workshop should move into a different kind of jazz-standard challenge: “All the Things You Are”, where the real lesson is navigating multiple key centers and learning to recognize ii–V–I function even when the tonal center keeps moving.