Melodic minor in jazz

One scale, four jobs

Melodic minor is the major scale with a flattened third, and that single change makes its modes far more useful than the major modes. Four of the seven are the standard choice over a chord you will meet constantly: lydian dominant over a 7♯11, the altered scale over an altered dominant, locrian natural 2 over a m7♭5, and lydian augmented over a maj7♯5.

Learning it in twelve keys therefore buys four chord types at once. No other parent scale pays like that.

Over the half-diminished chord

Locrian natural 2 is Locrian with the ♭2 raised, and that one note is the difference between a scale you can build a line on and one where the second note fights the root. It is the sixth mode of melodic minor, which means a m7♭5 and the altered dominant that usually follows it can come out of two melodic minor scales a fourth apart.

Try it on your own chords

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