Stella by Starlight and the Melodic Minor scale

I'm going to post way more often, I promise.

I've always wanted to get more involved with the melodic minor scale since I think it has such a distinct sound in jazz. There's tons of theory behind it so I'm taking it slow. However, I am putting it directly into practice by applying what I learn right away.

I'm skipping all the big theory babble because there are definitely sites out there can explain it better than I can. If anyone would like me to elaborate on any aspect, even if it's just "what is melodic minor," I'd be more than happy to. But for now I'll just go straight ahead into an application.

Stella by Starlight is a nice piece with plenty of opportunity for melodic minor applications. So much that I'm only looking at the first four measures (in fact just the first two measures).

The first four measures are as follows:

Em7b5 - A7b9 - Cm7 - F7

Yes, the last two measures are a ii-V as you might be thinking. But I always like to look ahead.

I recorded two tracks on here: one is a jam track that you can play to at your leisure, and the other is the same thing but with a lick 1341 from Bopland. You can type in the chord progression and be given tons of jazz licks to play with. I think this is advantageous because it always helps to have something to build off of. And we all need to add licks to our dictionary to do this.


Here are some notes I took for myself, just for strategic purposes.

Em7b5:
- Chord tones: E-G-Bb-D
- E F# G A Bb C D E
- 6th mode of G melodic minor or E locrian #2 scale


A7b9:
- Chord tones: A-C-Eb-G
- A Bb C Db Eb F G
- 7th mode of Bb melodic minor or A superlocrian


On first change, look out for:
C stays the same... avoid on the first note of second measure
D goes to Db but not chord tone in the A7b9
E changes to Eb (also the 5th in A chord)
F# goes to F (passing tones)
G stays the same... avoid on the first note of second measure
A stays the same and is root of second chord
Bb stays the same

Target on the change:
Eb (fifth)

Same:
C
G
A
Bb

Change:
D -> Db
E -> Eb
F# -> F

I'll post an actual improv when I feel a little more comfortable =)

Oh I also realized the audio is really low... I'll fix that for next time. You might need some good bass on those speakers to hear it.

Stella by Starlight first four chords

Stella by Starlight - bop lick