Early jazz crooner Al Jolson made “Avalon” a hit in the 1920s. Songwriting credit for the piece is murky, but Jolson, Vincent Rose, and B.G. DeSylva are usually listed as composers. Aaron teaches the song in the key of F. The song has a slightly unusual AABC format, and the progression starts on the ii7 chord (Gm7) and only occasionally resolves back to the tonic. In the course of the solo, you’ll play a rhythmically displaced melody segment, chord tones, a blues scale, and some quarter-note chromatic fills. In this video, Aaron shows you the chord progression for “Avalon.”
