Body & Soul Jazz Piano Tutorial Part 1
Body & Soul is widely quoted as the most popular jazz standard and is one of the most played ballad in the jazz repertoire. The catchy melodic motives, complex chord progressions and unusual key changes make this tune a favourite amongst jazz musicians.
Body & Soul follows a 32 measure AABA form and is written in the key of Db major however it modulates to D major and then C major in the bridge.
In part 1 we explore the form with left hand voicings. This is an important step to become familiar with the harmony. There are lot of key changes in Body & Soul and so spending the time to apply the left hand voicings with give you a clear understanding of the harmonic movement in the tune.
In part 2 of the tutorial we create a full solo piano arrangement incorporating extended and altered harmony.
Related Lessons
251 progressions are essential components of the jazz language and so taking the time to memorise them will greatly benefit your playing.
Rootless voicings sound more professional than root based 7th chords and they voice lead much more smoothly in a 251 progression.
To play a rootless voicing we leave out the root of the chord and play one of the upper extensions to get a richer, more colourful sound.
Practice Tips
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When playing through with left hand voicings, pay attention to good voice leading between the chords.
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The idea is to keep your hand movement to a minimum which will create smoother chord transitions and modulations.
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Left hand voicings are a great choice of voicing to support your right hand soloing and so taking the time to memorise them will help you enormously when you come to take a solo.
Hi Hayden! The score on the website is incomplete in the middle part. Just to let you know. Thanks for the lesson 😉
Thanks Michele, I’ll fix this shortly 🙂
Hayden : is still incomplete the score !
Hi Anthony,
Hello Hayden, just curious since I solved this ‘problem’ for myself. Namely, in bar #18 in Chord Changes above there is a F#m7 with a straight D in melody that sounds to me a bit jarring especially since it is played slowly and stands out. In the same bar in the transcript, the equivalent chord is D6/9 which sounds better to me. In the fakebook I have the chord is D/F# which can be played as D6/9 or a variation of it.
Hello Hayden: after having time on the lesson on slashed chords, I came up with an answer to my question: I am treating this F#m7 chord as a D chord over F#. Hope I am not too far off on this. As I said, I solved this problem to my satisfaction in how I play this bar/measure so no need to respond. [Don’t worry, I’m bound to have other questions on other threads]. Best, Smole
Hey Smole,
Thanks, Hayden, even though I thing I did “get it” by conceptualizing the chord as a slash chord your answer provides so much more useful info (6th instead of 7h dissonance; viewing F#-7 differently, the moving bassline) so this really clarifies things for me. Thanks again, Smole
Hey Hayden,
Hi Dokko 👋
Thank you! So I’ll do the following for learning the standards:
– Continue to mark up the lead sheets for part 1 of pieces
– For the part 2, I’ll follow the full arrangement via the score
Hi Hayden,
Can you please explain how you construct and make sense of the chord Gb7 in the 3rd bar? I am quite confused about figuring it out.
Thank you Best, Timothy
Hi Timothy 👋🏻
Are you referring to the rootless voicing?
I understand that rootless voicings can sometimes be tricky to visualise for dominant chords!
The voicing I play is E-Ab-Bb-Eb, if we analyse those notes in terms of Gb7, I am playing the b7-9-3-13 which is a common rootless voicing for dominant chords.
It can be useful to play that voicing in your right hand, and then play the root of the chord in your left hand. That way you can analyse the notes in relation to the Gb in your left hand.
In jazz, we do not have the play the root in our voicings, and this allows us to access lots of different textures over a single chord type. In part 2 of this tutorial we add some bigger 2-handed voicings which sound great too – variety is the key!
Let me know if the above helps and any further questions just let me know.
Cheers, Hayden