I'm referring to the sub for a Dominant 7 in most of the tunes I've played from his charts. I understand it can add some good tension as well as bring chromatic bass lines into play, but sometimes it just seems messy.
When using the Nolan books at jams do you always play 13b9 chords or is it okay to just play the Dom7?
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You get to choose whatever chords you want to play. If you want to sub a straight up dominant 7th chord (as opposed to a maj or min 7th) go for it.
Best to understand why you are making that choice though.
The 13b9 chord highlights that a sub for a Dominant 7 can be made by just raising the root one semi-tone.
He uses that cliché in a lot of songs in the book for 2-5 movement.
This is the tough question -->
Creates a nice subtle tension and release into the settled C 6/9 Playing it with a standard G7 sounds contrived and very unhip to my ears in the context of the melody. Once into the improv part then depending on what the bass and soloist are doing one could play the Dm7 G7/B and then C6 with the root on the 6 string or play it with G in the root or a rootless G7.
Chord comping with minimal movement of the voicings often sounds better and gets less in the way of the soloist than bouncing all over the neck. But there are times when a big move is just the right thing to do.
The joy in this is finding all the different ways of playing this and then using the one that works best in the context of what is going on.
My $0.02 FWIW
It's especially nice in tunes that have 3 6 2 5 like Coquette.
That's what I think when I see 13b9, I could be way off.