Sax Lesson 53: Pentatonic over Major 7

Link to Lesson Blog: http://mattotto.org/?p=2991

I played a gig a few weeks ago with a wonderful alto player from NYC named Logan Richardson. While playing over Without a Song in Eb using Joe Henderson's changes, Logan played a nice pentatonic idea over the concert B Major7 in bar 5. I liked it because it wasn't the pentatonic sound that I usually use over a major chord. He played a melody outlining an F# Major pentatonic over the B Major 7th chord (the next chord is F# Major 7, so he may have concevied of it as a harmonic anticipation of sorts). Although this may be common practice, I don't actually use that specific sound (F# Major pentatonic over B Major 7) as often as I'd like, so I came up with a simple melody to help me become more familiar with the concept and it's use. The line starts with the first 6 notes that Logan played during his solo and than ends with something I heard as a continuation, perhaps reminiscent of one of John Coltrane's pentatonic ideas.Logan Richardson

The melody is worked around the circle of 4th starting with C major. I also play the shell voicing (1, Maj 3, Maj 7) in each key to give harmonic context to the melody since there is no root found in this application of the pentatonic scale. You can use the midi mp3 below to practice singing the melody while visualising the fingerings.




~Enjoy!

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[MattOttoJazz]

@MMMaroney Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy the material.

[MMMaroney]

Hey Matt,

Thanks a lot for these videos. I go to University for music studying saxophone, but despite playing in the jazz ensemble the program mostly focuses on classical music. My real passion is jazz, and your videos have given me some terrific stuff to be working on to develop my playing.

Cheers, and thanks again!