Cool Accompaniment

THE FIRST TIME I was handed a jazz chord chart, I was 13 years old and trying to prove to the director of my middle-school jazz band that I could cut it as the ensemble’s guitarist. I had been on his bad side ever since I nearly flunked out of his symphonic band as an alto saxophonist, so when I requested an audition, he practically laughed me out of the room. Nevertheless, he handed me a chord chart — also referred to as a “lead sheet” — and told me to bring my A-game to the audition.

To cut a long story short, I bombed the audition, not because I couldn’t play but because I had no understanding of how to properly approach the material. Instead of following the changes given to me, which were all standard seventh chords, I played triadic major and minor chords, which are in most cases stylistically inappropriate for jazz. The director asked me to play “Freddie Green–style,” and I just shrugged and wondered silently who Freddie Green was. After my embarrassing performance, I knew I needed to buckle down and study jazz rhythm guitar if I wanted to be a part of that scene. While the audition gave me a good idea of where to start, I had no idea just how deep the rabbit hole would go. That experience inspired this month’s lesson: a guide to jazz guitar comping styles.

is the jazz idiom’s stylized