‘Freight Trane’ is a 12 bar blues. The example above shows how we might develop a bass line when we are presented with only a lead sheet. The first time through there is a whole tone bass line which seems to pull the piece along. The second chorus fills in the third beats of the bar with alternate chord tones. 

Below is ‘Blues for Alice’ by Charlie Parker. It has very similar changes (beginning at bar 5).  The hand written changes are in keeping with our approach of looking at the chords as “temporary key groups”. Parker plays a II – V – I pattern but the I chord becomes the II chord of the next group. Instead of remembering a complex series of twenty chords, one can remember nine II – V groups.