The previous posts in the ‘Harmonic Moss’ series dealt with various voicings, scale outlines and various melodic patterns for the major ii-V-I progression. Although I have another post, ‘What Is This Scale Called?’, which deals with scale choices over the minor ii-V-I progression, specifically with reference to two Charlie Parker solos on ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’, the next two posts deal with voicings for the minor ii-V-I and ways of relating scale choices and melodic pattern to them.
This voicing is the one Phil Degreg refers to as the ‘A form voicing’ of the minor ii-V-i, but it can also be referred to as the ‘off the 7th’ voicing, in other words, the one where the rootless three note voicings for the ii chord (which is typically a minor 7 flat five) and the i chord (which is conventionally expressed as a minor 7th chord but can also be a minor 6, minor 6/9 or a minor-major 7th chord) both have the seventh degree of the chord on the bottom of the voicing. One pattern that correlates with this voicing is m. 20-21 of the Miles Davis-Charlie Parker tune ‘Donna Lee’. (Although Charlie Parker actually plays the third note and fifth notes a half step higher than shown here, the version I have used, which is consistent with how the tune has typically been published and played, reflects a more ‘inside’ scale choice.) In step 4 of the sheet below I suggest this pattern as one of those that I suggest practicing in one hand with the ‘A form’ voicing of the minor ii-V-I in the other hand.
Besides ‘What Is This Thing’, other jazz standard tunes in which two-bar minor ii-V and/or the four bar minor ii-V-i occur at least twice include Luis Bonfa’s ‘Black Orpheus’, Deitz and Schwartz’ ‘Alone Together’, Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Woody N’ You’ and ‘A Night In Tunisia’, Kosma and Mercer’s ‘Autumn Leaves’, Victor Young’s ‘Stella by Starlight’ and ‘Beautiful Love’, Toots Theilmans’ ‘Bluesette’, Harry Warren and Gordon’s ‘There Will Never Be Another You’, Jerome Kern’s ‘Yesterdays’ and George and Ira Gershwin’s ‘Strike Up The Band’.
