Days of Wine and Roses - Thematic Practice
Continuing on the theme of... thematic practice, Days of Wine and Roses gives us some opportunities to explore relationships between harmonic areas within a key. Specifically, and what notes can be changed or kept constant between harmonies to accomplish the dual aim of emphasizing (1) harmonic changes and (2) thematic development.
This tune has essentially one distinctive harmonic element, which is the use of the subdominant minor function - also called the "backdoor" progression. Here you are borrowing harmony from the parallel minor, and the key note is b6 or Le. In the key of F (which is the key this tune is typically played in) that is Db.
Two chords in the first 8 bars highlight this sound: the Eb7 (bVII7) in bar 2, and the Bb-maj7 in bars 7 and 8. Taking these individually:
Eb7
Eb7 can be viewed as a static dominant OR as a sub V (tritone sub) leading to D7 (V of II) in bar 3. Practically, I much prefer NOT to think of it in the latter way - far too "Circle of Fifths"-y, old fashioned, and clunky. For bars 3 and 4, I'm thinking more "II-V of II", which is a slower lead-in to the very strong D7 sound.
Either way, the "right" notes include the #11 (A or Mi), which is obviously confirmed by the melody, which implies Eb Lydian Dominant, or Bb melodic minor.
And the key observation is that set of notes is just an F major scale with the 6th and 7th degrees (La and Ti) flatted (to Le and Te). There are no "avoid notes," and virtually any combination of notes from this scale is going to give you the "Subdominant Minor" sound
Bb-maj7
Because this is coming from G-7 in bars 5-6, which is explicitly a subdominant sound, here you have subdominant moving to subdominant minor, the classic "backdoor" progression. Usually you'll see this spelled as Bbmaj7 going o Bb-maj7, but because Bbmaj7 and G-7 are such close cousins from the subdominant family, the overall sound is effectively the same.
Again the melody tells us a lot about the chord quality. While Bb-7 is a perfectly acceptable harmonic choice in these types of progressions (which would include an Ab, really borrowing from parallel minor), the melody prominently states an A natural, strongly implying a minmaj7 chord quality.
And again the most natural scale choice is Bb melodic minor - which is... you guessed it just F major with flat 6th and 7th degrees
As you're building a theme in a solo on this tune, you can exploit this relationship. In the following video, I'm trying to develop a very simple triad, changing a note here and there to accommodate/suggest the harmony. I'm thinking almost entirely in F, as outlined in the "cheat sheet" below.
Is this the most musical sounding thing in the world? No, but it is an ingredient you should have at your disposal to include thematic material in your solos, which makes for interesting contrasts to more linear playing, and a hook that listeners can latch onto.
