All Blues Easy G Blues in 6/4 (can be felt in 3/4 also) by Miles Davis from his classic album “Kind of Blue.”
Blue Monk Easy Bb Blues by Thelonious Monk.
Bag’s Groove Vibraphonist Milt Jackson’s classic Blues in F.
C-Jam Blues The easiest Blues melody of them all by Duke Ellington. Great first jazz tune!
Doxy Simple, bluesy Bb tune over a 16 bar form by Sonny Rollins.
Fly Me to the Moon There are more chords in this tune than some of the others on this list, but the melody is easy to play or sing, and the tune doesn’t really have any harmonic surprises, making it an easy tune to improviser over using a C major/A natural minor scale.
Mr. P.C. Named for his bassist Paul Chambers, this is an easy minor blues in C minor by John Coltrane.
Now’s the Time A simple F blues by Charlie Parker.
Route 66 A classic F blues. The melody lasts for four choruses of blues, with breaks on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd bars of the 3rd chorus. This is a great vocal tune but it can also be played as an instrumental.
Song for My Father This tune doesn’t have very many chords, and yet harmonically it’s more complex than many of the other tunes on this list. You can kind of get away with smashing an F blues over the whole thing…but while that can work it’s better to improvise melodies using different scales on different chords. It’s a good first tune for navigating “changes.”
Sonnymoon for Two Very easy Bb blues by Sonny Rollins.
Summertime Classic standard by Gershwin, this tune moves back and forth between the relative major and minor key centers.
Tenor Madness Easy Bb blues by Sonny Rollins.
Watermelon Man Straight 8th note 16 bar blues by Herbie Hancock.
Work Song A bluesy 16 bar tune by Nat Adderley in F minor.
Autumn Leaves en Satin Doll
