Welcome to Blue Bossa — Complete Study
The perfect first standard. Kenny Dorham’s Blue Bossa packs a full jazz education into 16 bars — a minor ii–V–i, a quick trip to a new key, and an irresistible bossa groove. This course takes you from the melody all the way to confident soloing in C minor.
What You’ll Work On
- Learning the melody and form cold
- Melodic-structure etudes that map the changes
- Core exercises — roots, inversions, and permutations
- Shell voicings and an authentic bossa-nova rhythm
- Pentatonic approaches and soloing over the ii–V
- Chord melody and full improvisation
The Path — 7 Modules
A complete arc from tune to solo. Follow in order, or target what you need:
1. Foundation: The Tune 2. Melodic Structure Etudes 3. Exercises 4. Voicings & Bossa Rhythm 5. Pentatonics & Soloing 6. Chord Melody 7. Improvisation
Your Goals in This Course
- Play the melody and changes from memory with a real bossa feel
- Comp with shell voicings and steady time
- Solo confidently using chord tones and pentatonics
- Arrange a chord-melody chorus of your own
New to the site? This is the ideal place to start — your progress saves automatically as you go.