Expanding Your Chord Vocabulary

Jazz guitar legend Vic Juris opens up the chord concepts behind his book Modern Chords (Mel Bay), filmed at his home in West Orange, New Jersey. Drawing on years of comping in pianoless groups — including Dave Liebman's band — Vic shows how to move beyond conventional stock shapes into intervallic structures and polychords.

What's covered

• Vic's full reharmonization of All The Things You Are (recorded on his CD Second Look), played first with the original changes, then broken down chord by chord
• Building reharmonizations from a moving minor-triad shape, with contrary motion between melody and bass
• The consecutive minor 7th device Vic learned from Bill Evans' tune Time Remembered
• A major 7 sharp 5 voicing learned from Dave Liebman, living in the harmonic minor area
• Polychords and two-triad structures — including the stacked-triad shape Joe Diorio calls a "movie chord"
• Fresh comping options for static modal harmony, like the D Dorian vamps of Impressions and So What
• Mick Goodrick's practice idea: running every new voicing through a scale

Recorded as a live class with audience questions, this is a chance to learn modern harmony straight from one of its most respected voices. Ideal for players tired of the same grips who want a richer comping palette. Full video is 1 hour and 27 minutes.