You can solo through all of Sunny with one blues sound, because its chords share upper structures. Over Am7, play A minor blues. Over C7, the blue note of that same A minor blues becomes the ♯9. Over Fmaj7, play F major blues — the A minor triad is the upper structure of Fmaj7. Over Bm7♭5 and E7, think F minor: Bm7♭5 shares a D minor triad with F6, and F minor sits a half step above E7, giving you the altered sound. Junewon Choi mapped this out live on VoiceLid Jazz Guitar, and it shows why our online jazz guitar lessons treat upper structures as the bridge between blues and jazz harmony.
Why Does Sunny Work So Well for This?
Sunny has been played by Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Pat Martino and many others, and the chord changes aren't complicated. The first line is Am7, C7, Fmaj7, then Bm7♭5 and E7 back to A minor, and much of the tune repeats that line. Once you find a sound that works for one line, you have most of the tune. There is one more shortcut: in a later line, E7 and B♭7 trade places. They share the same tritone (G♯/A♭ and D), so they share the same dominant function and point to the same target. A tritone substitution doesn't give you new work; it gives you the same target from a different bass note.
Where Do the Blues Scales Line Up With the Chords?
Here is the map for the first line:
Am7: A minor blues.
C7: the blue note of A minor blues (E♭) is the ♯9 of C7, so the same scale gives you an exact dominant sound.
Fmaj7: F major blues. The A minor triad (A, C, E) is the upper structure of Fmaj7, and A is the 3rd of F, so the A minor phrase lands on a chord tone.
Bm7♭5 → E7: F minor.
Play bar one, use the blue note in bar two, and you arrive on the 3rd of F in bar three without changing your hand position. For a similar map on another standard, read How Do You Use Blues Sounds on All the Things You Are?
Why Is Bm7♭5 Secretly an F Chord?
Play F as F6 instead of Fmaj7: F, A, C, D. Take the root away and you have a D minor triad (D, F, A) on top. Now look at Bm7♭5: B, D, F, A. Take the root away and the upper structure is the same D minor triad. So moving from F6 to Bm7♭5 is not a new chord for the soloist — the top stays the same while the bass moves. That is why F major and F minor sounds feel so natural across this part of the tune. It is the same logic as the ballad ending that sounds like a tritone substitution but isn't: the shared upper structure does the work.
Why Does F Minor Give You the Altered Sound on E7?
The easiest way to get the altered sound without thinking about the altered scale is a minor triad a half step above the dominant. A half step above E is F, so F minor (F, A♭, C) over E7 gives you the ♭9 (F), the 3rd (A♭ = G♯) and the ♭13 (C). If you are already playing F minor blues, the minor 3rd is already in your phrase. That means bars four, eight and so on need no new scale — just a minor sound you already have. For more on this idea, see How Do You Get the Altered Sound Without the Altered Scale? If you want the full voicing system behind upper structures, the Bridge Series walks through how upper structure triads connect to chord function.
How Do You Put the Whole Line Together?
Play A minor blues over Am7 for one bar.
Land on the blue note (E♭) over C7.
Move straight into F major blues over Fmaj7, aiming for A.
Keep the D minor triad sound over F6 and Bm7♭5.
Play F minor over E7 and resolve to A minor.
Loop the line with a play-along, then try the B♭7 variation.
Why Does One Sound Make the Tune Easier?
Because you stop changing scales on every chord and start hearing the tune as one consistent blues sound with a few shared shapes. The shapes come from the upper structures; the feeling comes from the blues. Wes Montgomery built whole tunes on that logic — melody and the voicings underneath it, not patterns — 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