Jazz Harmony - Pentatonics and Minor 6 shapes of 7 chords

email to a student/mate of mine from couple of days ago:

Hi
Been thinking about this stuff
It’s great!

First Pentatonics

So – Eb = C7 blues etc
Also for C7
You can have Bb pent
And F pent [C7sus]

..and C of course. Nice to have really inside sound for contrast
And...
G pent = turn it into a maj 7 — why not! You’re allowed! It’s cool
....so while you’re at it – can also use D pent {still turning the C7 into a Cmaj7}

A pent and you’re gone into fairy land
Same with E, B and F# pents
- but you can weave a maze of logic to make them work ..forget that for the time being.
(Smooth and Sweet for now)

Ab pent – and It’s now either C7alt or a dark c minor

And last one: Db pentatonic scale: basically could be one of three:
even darker c minor
C7sus b13, b9 ...with a passing #9? ..could be something like that
and; you could just be crazy man and just be going up a semitone and out, wild, wow!!!

---

Now to minor 6 shapes
Let’s move away from our C centricity for a moment

We’ll focus it all on F7 {F, Eb, A}

C minor six shape (C, Eb, G, A) -- cute!
D ,, ,, ,, ...extra cute!
F ,, ,, ,, bluesy, cool
Ab ,, ,, ,, extra bluesy man! - really cool cause can be just blues scale like; altered scale; or same as one below[next]:
B ,, ,, ,, out! But NOT out. Fantastic (= F7 13 #11 b9 #9) = diminished scale also
F# ,, ,, ,, beautiful. Altered.

So the first four a pretty much inside
Then last two get weird but very groovy

And there are two more sneaky ones do you want to know about them?
Ok
They both make our friend F7 into F7 sus — one w a flat nine, the other with a flat 13
...but you really do not have to be all intellectually aware of these finer details. Just learn them. Just mix them up.
Eb minor six shape
Bb ,, ,, ,,

Love and peace
Tom x