Bird blues: the Blues for Alice changes and a backing track

Parker kept the landmarks of the blues — the I in bar 1, the IV in bar 5, the ii–V in bars 9–10 — and filled everything between them with ii–Vs that fall by step. It looks like a different tune. It is the same twelve bars.

Your key

1Fmaj7Imaj7

2Em7♭5VIIøA7♭9III7

3Dm7VIm7G7II7

4Cm7Vm7F7I7

5B♭7IV7

6B♭m7IVm7E♭7♭VII7

7Am7IIIm7D7VI7

8A♭m7♭IIIm7D♭7♭VI7

9Gm7IIm7

10C7V7

11Am7IIIm7D7VI7

12Gm7IIm7C7V7

New in this step

▶ Play it in JamShed

Tempo

Swing · 140 bpm · F · the trio repeats the form until you stop it

What changed

In F, the key of Blues for Alice: Fmaj7, then Em7♭5–A7 to Dm7–G7 to Cm7–F7, landing on B♭7 in bar 5. Then B♭m7–E♭7, Am7–D7, A♭m7–D♭7, falling by semitones to Gm7 in bar 9. Bars 11–12 turn around with Am7–D7 and Gm7–C7.

No single box covers this, and that is the lesson: from here on, lines come from the chords. But it is less to learn than it looks. It is one move, the ii–V, repeated — and you met it in step 2.

Your pentatonic box here (in F)

The guide-tone chain: in every ii–V the seventh of the ii falls a semitone to the third of the V. D→C♯ (Em7♭5 to A7), C→B (Dm7 to G7), B♭→A (Cm7 to F7), A♭→G (B♭m7 to E♭7), G→F♯ (Am7 to D7), G♭→F (A♭m7 to D♭7), F→E (Gm7 to C7). Play only those notes, two per bar, and you are playing the form.
Bar 1 is a major seventh, not a dominant: the E♭ and the A♭ of your F minor box clash with Fmaj7. Start on A or E, its third and seventh.
The pentatonic way in is the one from step 3: the minor pentatonic of each ii chord covers its ii–V. At this speed, take one or two notes of it per chord instead of running the shape.
With the Practice Pass, JamShed writes a pentatonic or a triad pair over every chord as it plays — the two systems the Mastering books build on.

The tips are in the step’s own key; in another key the same degrees apply. The pentatonics finder shows any pentatonic against any chord, note by note.

How to practise this step

Start slow, guide tones only, two per bar, until the chain sings by itself.
Then add one note before each guide tone — a semitone below or above — and you have the first bebop lines.
Last, the head of Blues for Alice, and a solo between two heads.