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, 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 necessarily utilize what you just spent weeks practicing. Instead, here are 10 tunes to learn next, ordered roughly from "you already know this" to "stretch goal."

Quick note: this is from the jazz side. If you're playing in blues bands, the key priorities are different. Guitar-friendly keys like E and A get called more often than the Bb/F/Eb world of jazz.

1. Tenor Madness (Sonny Rollins)

Another version of a Bb blues. Same form you already know, just with a bebop head and a different feel for the changes than running blues scales. You get Sonny Rollins' and John Coltrane's approach to a blues, plus there are killer recordings to learn from. Emmet's Place w/ Seamus Blake and Troy Roberts has tons of phrasing ideas and quotes.

Contrafacts and other blues heads are important in learning because they give you different ways to approach the same changes. The point isn't to learn a "new" tune. It's to extend the language you already have on a Bb blues and bring those approaches to other standards.

2. F, Eb, or C blues, pick one

Once you can blow over a Bb blues, the next step is doing it in another common key:

• F blues: Now's the Time, Au Privave, Billie's Bounce. Most common jam session second key. Billie's Bounce gives you a more complex blues with cool ii-V's and turnarounds.
• Eb blues: Sandu. Listen to Clifford Brown & Max Roach, one of the most impactful jazz records of all time.
• C blues: C-Jam Blues or Cheryl. Less common but worth it.

The goal isn't to learn three new tunes. It's to take what you already know on a Bb blues and prove your fingers can do it in any key. Eventually all 12. The key you skip is the one that'll get called in the jam session. At minimum, most jazz musicians should know how to play on an F, Eb, Bb, and C blues.

3. Blues for Alice (Charlie Parker)

The next harmonic step still within the 12-bar form. Instead of a few chords, Bird's substitution changes give you a different chord every bar with ii-V motion throughout. This is your bridge from "blues" to "playing changes."

If you've been getting by with the blues scale, Blues for Alice will force you out of that habit fast. Once you've got this and the regular blues under your belt, you can sound out almost any chord changes.

4. Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael)

Your first ballad. AABA form, mostly diatonic A sections with clear tonal centers; the changes don't move so fast that you're stuck just running scales. Slow tempo gives you actual room to develop melodic ideas and improvise instead of just relying on your fingers. Learning how to match a slower tempo is also great for speed demons and people who keep rushing and yearning to play up tempo. You can play double time, but at the same time, learn to say more by playing less.

Good recordings of Georgia on My Mind are dominated by singers, which will force you to learn and sing the changes and the melody/lyrics before attempting the changes. Good habits for far in the future. (Misty and In a Sentimental Mood are valid alternatives if Georgia doesn't speak to you: same idea, different vibe.)

5. Blue Bossa (Joe Henderson)

Your first minor non-swing tune. Latin/minor 16-bar form with both a minor ii-V-i AND a key change to Db major in the bridge. It gives you an introduction to minor ii-V's and starts you on learning tunes outside of swing. Have fun with this one.

Joe Henderson has the original recording, but I love and sing along to Dexter Gordon's solo on this tune on Biting the Apple. Finding who you enjoy listening to is equally as important as learning the tunes themselves.

6. Watermelon Man (Herbie Hancock)

A 16-bar blues usually in F with a blues/funk feel. Along with bossa tunes, it reminds you that jazz isn't only swing.

Two versions worth knowing: the original on Takin' Off (the best Herbie Hancock album by the way) and the funkier reinterpretation on Head Hunters. Same tune, completely different feels. Studying both teaches you how the same harmonic content can sit in radically different grooves.

7. Autumn Leaves

Now we're in ii-V-I territory, the building block for most 32-bar standards beyond the blues. After you've learned to navigate Bird blues (Blues for Alice), Autumn Leaves teaches you to apply the same skill to a 32-bar form that resolves to both a relative major and a relative minor (aka major and minor ii-V-I's). It's not a particularly fast tune, which gives you time to engrave the changes in your memory and improvise melodically.

Get comfortable here, and the next several standards all become "Autumn Leaves but with X variation."

8. Lady Bird (Tadd Dameron)

Cycle of 5ths motion (descending fifths), a harmonic pattern that's not just ii-V-I cycling. After Autumn Leaves, Lady Bird is a fundamental tune that gives you the next major harmonic tool: third/sixth jumps and circle motion to get back to home.

The closing turnaround is a classic study. Once you have this under your fingers, you'll start hearing similar cycle-of-5ths motion in dozens of other standards. If you haven't listened to Dexter's Lady Bird solo, THE Lady Bird solo, I would check it out. Every horn player at some point has transcribed at least a few choruses of that solo, if not the entire thing.

9. Anthropology / Oleo / Rhythm Changes

Rhythm changes: the second-most-important form in jazz after the blues. AABA, 32 bars, faster chord motion. Just remember a bunch of I-VI-ii-V variations, and even though the bridge seems like random chords at first, you can 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, 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.

One worthwhile detour if you have time: learn the source tune (I Got Rhythm, or Honeysuckle Rose, or Indiana) before the contrafact (Anthropology, Scrapple from the Apple, Donna Lee). The bebop head becomes way more meaningful when you know what it's based on.

10. All The Things You Are

The final boss. 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. If you can blow over ATTYA, half the Real Book opens up to you.

Honorable mentions

A few more tunes worth knowing at this stage, raised by commenters on the first version of this article:

1. Indiana -> Donna Lee and Honeysuckle Rose -> Scrapple from the Apple. The "easy swing to bebop contrafact" framework that turf3 (Sax on the Web) highlighted. Learn the source before the contrafact.
2. There Will Never Be Another You. Similar harmonic territory to Autumn Leaves, classic gig tune. Was in the first article, dropped to make room here.
3. Sweet Georgia Brown / Dinah / St. James Infirmary. Pre-bebop swing with clear forms that move slowly. turf3 on Sax on the Web argued for these as bridge tunes between blues and bebop.
4. Misty / In a Sentimental Mood / My Funny Valentine. Alternative ballad picks if Georgia on My Mind doesn't speak to you.
5. So What / Maiden Voyage. If you want the modal-first path instead of repertoire progression.
6. Take the A Train. The V7/V + modulation-to-IV concept makes a useful precursor to rhythm changes.

Different valid paths

This list reflects one approach: blues -> bird blues -> standards -> rhythm changes. There are others. The modal-first path starts with So What or Maiden Voyage over vamps. The pre-bebop swing path starts with Dinah and Sweet Georgia Brown. The bar-by-bar approach stays in the 12-bar blues form longer, adding harmonic complexity one measure at a time before moving on. All of them work. Pick the one that fits how you learn.

However, one thing to stand by: none of this matters without playing with other musicians. Find people to play with. While most of your time may be spent in the shed practicing, music is a social kind of art, and consulting mentors or other peer musicians is integral for learning and expanding the jazz community. You won't know what tune is called at a jam session until you actually go to the jam session.

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.

Compare a Bb blues to similar tunes ->

Credit where due

This article got significantly better thanks to feedback from commenters on Reddit and Sax on the Web. Specifically:

• turf3 (Sax on the Web) for pre-bebop swing tunes, the source-before-contrafact framework, and Lady Bird
• FisherSax (Sax on the Web) for the multi-year middle school curriculum perspective
• SuperAction80 (Sax on the Web) for the horizontal vs vertical playing framing
• u/abookfulblockhead (Reddit) for catching the Autumn Leaves / rhythm changes ordering
• u/NeighborhoodGreen603 (Reddit) for pushing for non-swing stylistic variety (Blue Bossa, Watermelon Man, Chameleon)
• u/justgesing (Reddit) for the Georgia on My Mind first-ballad recommendation
• sopsax (Sax on the Web) for the "subconscious brain trusts your fingers" framing on all-keys practice
• and several others whose specific insights made this list dramatically tighter

A follow-up article on practice (how to actually learn these tunes) is coming next.