Substitutions are a great way to get more mileage out of simple progressions, and some of them have an iconic jazz sound. All a substitution is, is where you take an existing chord and imply a different chord of your choice over them. It even allows horn players to think more harmonically and generate spice within our solos. In fact, some substitutions are so common, they’re now a staple part of jazz vocabulary that all musicians should know.
Today, we’re going to look at five different substitutions and break down some phrases that demonstrate them in action. But before we get going, make sure to check out the 80 Substitution Licks resource. In it, you’ll find 80 different phrases through 10 important chord substitutions commonly found in jazz. All of the materials are written in all 12 keys and come with backing tracks and recordings of all 80 phrases. Plus, if you want to hear how Nathan plays through these examples, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, 5 Substitutions to Spice Up your Lines.
Now let’s get substituting!
Contents
Tritone substitution
Our first substitution is one that is maybe the most famous in jazz, and that’s the tritone substitution. Let’s take a look at this phrase and break it down.
So what’s going on here? We start off with the chromatic approach tone to the root of our Dm7 chord. Then we go a scale tone above and return. This is all decoration around the root of D, and then we play a decoration of a backwards 1, 2, b3, 5 cell. From there we voice lead to the #11 of our V7 chord, and this begins our tritone sub. A tritone substitution is where we take the dominant chord and simply shift it up a tritone interval. So looking at this G7, we pop the root up a tritone to Db, and we’ll solo as if this chord was Db7. So with this implied Db7 shape, we play 1, 2, 3, 5 and return to the 1 up an octave. Then we’ll chromatically walk our way down to the b7 and return back up to the root one more time. Now we voice lead up a half step into the 9 of our tonic chord and we’re back to thinking in the original key. We play the 9 as a quarter note, and then we go down this E minor upper structure, which is found in the Cmaj7 chord. Then we jump up to the root and play an enclosure around the 7, walking down the scale tones to the 5.
Side slip ii-V
Our second sub for today is what’s known as the side-slip ii-V. Let’s check out the example first and talk it through.
So what’s this one all about? Let’s skip to our V chord. We’re going to compress this V chord into a quick ii-V, so as you see, we’ve implied the chords F#m7 and B7 within one measure. Now in the preceding measure, our ii chord will also imply the same short ii-V, but this time up a half step. So we’re approaching a quick ii-V with another quick ii-V up a half step. So given these parameters, our line starts off with the permutation of the Gm7 arpeggio — b3, 1, 5, b7. Then we voice lead down to the third of our implied C7 chord. Then we simply go up the Em7b5 upper structure, which gives us this chord’s 3, 5, b7, and 9. And now we voice lead down a half step and we’re on the 5 of our implied F#m7 chord. We walk down to its minor third, then play an enclosure with a chromatic note from below and a diatonic note above, targeting the 5 of our B7, which is F#. Now with the nice interval skip, we jump all the way up to a diatonic approach note that targets the 3 of our B7 chord and we keep walking down the scale till we reach the 5 of our tonic chord. From here, we simply arpeggiate down the E major triad and then go up to its six, and for a satisfying resolution, we’ll play the 9 and resolve on the major 7.
Lady Bird Turnaround
Our third substitution is one that’s called the Lady Bird turnaround, also known as the Tadd Dameron turnaround (the composer of the tune Lady Bird).
We’ll check out an example from our 80 Substitution Licks resource and break it down.
So for this, you’ll see we have a very typical I-vi-ii-V progression, but besides the tonic chord, we’ll shift all the other chords up a tritone and change them to maj7 chords.
So in this phrase, on our tonic chord, we start on a 3 and go up an Fm triad upper structure and voice lead down a half step to our implied Emaj7, and then just walk up the Emaj7 arpeggio. Then we voice lead down to the 3 of Amaj7 and continue chromatically to walk down until we target the 5 of our implied Dmaj7. Then we’ll play this cool melodic cell—5, 3, 5, 6. Now on the next chord, we’re going to play this exact same melodic cell, but because it resolves down a half step, we’re going to play this one down a half step, too—5, 3, 5, 6, again. And because it sounds cool, we play the 3 then the 9 to end off the phrase.
Backdoor substitution
Our fourth chord sub today is the backdoor substitution. Here’s an example to get us started.
So what do we have here? The backdoor substitution takes our ii-V and exchanges it for a ivm7 to a bVII7, and this dominant chord’s root moves up a whole step to resolve to the tonic. This is a very common and beautiful substitution in jazz. So the line itself starts off with the Bbmaj7 upper structure, where we change it to a pivot chord, meaning the last 3 notes are shifted down an octave. Then we walk down to the root of this implied chord and simply walk up the scale. At the end of our walk, we land on the 9 of our implied C7 chord, and we chromatically crawl our way down till we get to the b7. From here, we have a slight embellishment and simply walk down the arpeggio of C7. This lands us in a spot where we can perfectly voice lead up a half step, landing us on the major 7 of our Dmaj7 chord. Now we’re back in the sound of the original key, and with this flurry of triplets, we’re going to stairstep our way up until we get to the 9 and walk our way up one more time and resolve on this third to jump down to the fifth and end on the root.
Matrix cycle substitution
This last one is possibly the most interesting and has a very unique sound. Here’s an example from the 80 Substitution Licks resource.
Maybe you caught this, but what we have here are the implied chords that are substituting a progression that comes directly from Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” and we call this progression the matrix cycle.
This cycle is based on modulating in major thirds. So if you take a look at these implied chords, we start off on F#maj7 and modulate down a major third to Dmaj7, then we modulate again down a major third to Bbmaj7. This chord can be found in the pickup chord to measure one in “Giant Steps,” and all the measures until we get to measure 4.
So in this phrase, we start off on the ii7 and go up a half step, then we begin that “Giant Steps” chord sequence. As for the line itself, we’ve got an arpeggio from the 5 of our Cm7 chord, giving us a Gm7 upper structure. Or you could just think of this as the Cm7’s 5, b7, 9, and 11. Then we voice lead down a whole step into the 9 of our implied C#7 chord and we simply go down this arpeggio, which is an E#m7b5, or you can also think of this as a rootless C#9 chord. So we have a 9, b7, 5, and 3, then we voice lead up a half step to the root of our implied F#7 chord. We simply go up the triad, 1, 3, 5, and walk down to the 4, voice leading us onto the root of the A7 implied chord. Here, we’ll play this popular melodic cell, which is to start on our root A, then chromatically walk our way down to the b7 and come back to the root. Then we dip down onto the 3 of our implied Dmaj7 chord and play this nice sounding shape. It’s really a Bsus structure starting on its fifth, but you can also think of it as an F#m11 structure, where you take the 5, C#, and replace it with the 11 instead—B. But no matter how you look at it, it does give you this implied Dmaj7’s 3, 5, 6, and 9, and this allows us to voice lead with a half step onto the root of the implied F7 chord here, and we’re simply going to play a pivot arpeggio of these chord tones. This is the 1, 3, 5, 7 arpeggio, but we’ll move the 3, 5, and 7 down the octave. With this, we voice lead again by a half step, but this time down onto our third of the arrival chord Bbmaj7, the tonic chord. Now we’re on the third and we play a great shape, the 1, 3, 4, 5, but starting on the 3, and playing it backwards until we resolve on the 3 once more.
Well that’s all for today, but if you want to dive even deeper into this, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video, 5 Substitutions to Spice Up your Lines, where you can see how Nathan tackles these lines. Plus, make sure to check out our resource 80 Substitution Licks, for even more ideas to try on your substitutions. See you next time!
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