This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he plays and breaks down a bass solo improvised over the chord progression to “All of Me”.
Contents
A Bass Solo Over “All of Me”
Here’s a solo I played over it.
Let me walk through the phrasing and the thinking behind how I built it.
What I Focused On While Building This Solo
Connecting the First Note of Each Bar Through Chord Tones
My basic approach was to connect the first note of each new bar using a chord tone from that bar’s chord.
Bar 1 starts on the major 3rd of CM7, E. From there, I connect to the 5th of E7 in bar 3, B. Then bar 5 connects to the root of A7, A… and so on.
Leaning Heavily on Hammer-Ons
Hammer-ons are key to getting that jazz phrasing to feel right. I use them a lot, even just in the first half.
Repeating a Similar Rhythmic Pattern
For the first eight bars of the second A section, I built the phrasing around a repeating rhythmic pattern, to give that stretch a sense of cohesion.
Adding the ♭9 Over Dominant Seventh Chords
For example, over the A7 in bar 6 of the A section, I add the ♭9, B♭.
And over the G7 in bar 8 of the B section, I add its ♭9, A♭.
Adding the ♭9 over dominant 7th chords like this is a very common approach in jazz phrasing.
There are some other go-to phrases worth covering too.
Go-To Phrases Worth Having for Sessions
Go-To Phrase #1
In bars 1–2 of the C section, there’s an F△7 → Fm7 progression. This is a phrase I reach for often whenever a progression like this moves between the major and minor version of the same key.
It moves: 5th → 3rd → 2nd → root → 5th → ♭3rd → 2nd → root.
I cover this same-key major/minor approach in more depth in another video:
Go-To Phrase #2
Over the Dm7 → G7 in the C section, I use the phrase below — a classic “two-five phrase” that’s great for creating a sense of resolution, and one I reach for constantly.
I hope these phrases find their way into your own playing — and turning ideas like these into something you can pull off confidently on the spot is exactly the kind of thing that benefits from outside feedback.
Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?
This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.
At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.
Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.