This month we are looking at another tasty solo courtesy of blues fusion master Oz Noy. Oz is a big fan of mixing blues with jazz and funk styles so Jason Sidwell wrote Streetwalk especially for him. It’s a straightforward Minor 12-bar with a groove set at 106bpm. The eighth notes have a swing feel so to keep our presentation easy to work with we have notated this using a 4/4 time signature rather 12/8.
Based mainly in the key of B minor (B-C#-D-E-F#-G-A), a few extra chords from outside this key have been added for harmonic colour.
The Minor 12-bar blues form is used for the verses so the chords are Bm7-Em7-F#m7. However, to provide a greater sense of resolution back to Bm7, the F#m7 in the last bar each time is changed instead to a more vibrant F7#9 chord.
The home scale of choice here is B Minor Pentatonic (B-D-E-F#-A) with the b5 interval (F) being introduced at times to create the six note B Blues scale (B-D-E-F-F#-A).
Another option when dealing with a 12-bar is to switch scales to match the underlying chords, so for the Em7, E Minor Pentatonic is ideal (E-G-A-B-D.) When the F#m7 comes around the F# Minor Pentatonic can be employed (F#-A-B-C#-E). Oz explains his main focus
