Blues for Alice

"Blues for Alice" is a 1951 jazz standard, composed by Charlie Parker.^[1][2] The standard is noted for its rapid bebop blues-style chord voicings and complex harmonic scheme which is a fine example of what is known as "Bird Blues".^[3][4] It is written in the key of F major and usually begins with an F major seventh or F sixth chord.

Parker's first recording of the piece is from August 1951 for Verve Records. The lineup consisted of Parker, Red Rodney (trumpet), John Lewis (piano), Ray Brown (bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums).^[5]

Structure

The composition is a modified twelve-bar blues^[6] in F major with heavy use of the ii-V-I progression.^[1]

See also

• List of post-1950 jazz standards
• Bird changes

References

1. The Real Book, Volume I, p. 55
2. The New Real Book, Volume II, p. 26
3. Lawn, Richard; Hellmer, Jeffrey L. (1996). Jazz: theory and practice. Alfred Music Publishing. p. 181. ISBN 0-88284-722-8.
4. Baerman, Noah (1998). Complete Jazz Keyboard Method: Intermediate Jazz Keyboard. Alfred Music Publishing. ISBN 0-88284-911-5.
5. Singletary, Marcus. "Charlie Parker: Blues for Alice". Jazz.com. Archived from the original on 23 September 2012. Retrieved 2 December 2010.
6. Pachet, François (February 2000). "Computer Analysis of Jazz Chord Sequences: Is Solar a Blues?" (PDF). Readings in Music and Artificial Intelligence. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-08-07. Retrieved 2012-06-15.

External links

• Recording by Charlie Parker on saxophone on YouTube
• Blues for Alice guitar arrangement on YouTube