Jazz Guitar Improvisation Tips: How Do You Use Blues Sounds on All the Things You Are?
Yes, you can play blues all the way through All the Things You Are, and it is one of the best ways to make a standard sound like real jazz. Over the opening Fm7, play F minor blues. Over E♭7, play A♭ minor blues, then resolve it to A♭ major blues when A♭maj7 arrives. And over G7, the blue note of F minor blues — B natural — becomes the 3rd of the chord. Junewon Choi demonstrated this map on a live stream for VoiceLid Jazz Guitar, and it is a core idea in our online jazz guitar lessons: the blues is not only a 12-bar form, it is a sound you can carry into any tune.
Why Is All the Things You Are the Right Tune for This?
All the Things You Are is one of the top jam tunes in jazz. At Berklee, people half-jokingly called it the school anthem. Its chords move almost entirely around the circle of fifths: 6-2-5-1-4, then 2-5-1, and the next section is close to a copy-paste of the first in a new key. That makes it the perfect place to get used to root motion in fourths and voice leading through it. It also means the same blues idea repeats in a predictable way, so once you find it in the first eight bars, you can find it again everywhere else. If you want more tunes to apply this to, June's Song Book has a curated list.
Where Does the Minor Blues Go in the First Eight Bars?
Here is the map, chord by chord, for the first A section:
Fm7 and B♭m7: F minor blues. Without the blue note, you are simply sitting in F minor.
E♭7: A♭ minor blues — the sound of the I chord in minor.
A♭maj7: A♭ major blues. Move the minor 3rd up to the major 3rd and you hear a cadence.
D♭maj7: back to the F minor sound, because an F minor triad sits on top of D♭maj7.
Dm7♭5: still F minor. Its upper structure is the same F minor triad.
G7: the blue note of F minor blues, B natural, is the 3rd of G7.
Cmaj7: the F minor sound slides down a half step to E minor, the upper structure of Cmaj7.
Why Does A♭ Minor Blues Work Over E♭7?
Go back to the basic 12-bar blues. Its last cadence is IV to I, and the sound of the IV chord is the same as the I chord in minor. Play a minor blues on the tonic, then resolve just the minor 3rd to the major 3rd, and you get the feeling of a cadence. All the Things You Are says "V to I" on paper, but what really matters is the I. So instead of thinking about the V chord, aim at the target: A♭ minor blues over E♭7, then A♭ major blues on arrival. The blues gives you the same pull a V chord gives, using a sound every guitarist already loves.
Does the Same Idea Work in the Next Section?
Exactly the same way, one key over. Over Cm7, play C minor. Over B♭7, use E♭ minor blues and resolve it to E♭ major blues on E♭maj7. Then C minor returns: it is the upper structure of A♭maj7 and also of Am7♭5, so the tonic sound simply continues. The blue note of C minor blues is F♯, which is the 3rd of D7. Finally, C minor moves down a half step to B minor, the upper structure of Gmaj7. For a related map on a shorter tune, see How Do You Play Blues Sounds Over Blue Bossa's Minor ii-V-I?, and for the upper structure side of this tune, read How Do You Solo Over All The Things You Are Without Thinking in Scales?
How Should You Practice It?
Don't try to understand all of this in your head first. Junewon's advice on the stream was simple: listen to how it sounds, because this is music you learn by ear.
Play the melody of the first eight bars and name each chord.
Improvise only F minor blues over bars 1–2, and stop.
Add the A♭ minor to A♭ major move over bars 3–4.
Hold the F minor sound through D♭maj7 and Dm7♭5, then land on B natural over G7.
Put it together with a backing track and record it.
Why Does This Make a Standard Sound More Like Jazz?
Because the blues is the flavor of jazz. To an American jazz audience, a blues phrase in the middle of a standard is what kimchi is to a Korean: the real, home-cooked taste coming through. It is not about scales or chord tones on their own. The blues sound in these examples is built on melody and the voicings underneath it, which is why it keeps working when the chords change. Wes Montgomery wrote whole tunes on that logic, and Wes' Blues Insight opens them one chorus at a time.
About the Author
Junewon Choi is a Berklee-trained jazz guitarist and the founder of VoiceLid Jazz Guitar, an online education platform teaching jazz harmony and improvisation through the Functional Diagonal Approach (FDA) — a chord-first method built on voice-leading rather than scale boxes.
Wes' Insight — Wes Montgomery's fretboard logic, in lesson form
Fundamental 1: Wes Diagonal System — the FDA from the ground up