Kenny Dorham
Blue Bossa chords
Blue Bossa by Kenny Dorham is an intermediate song in Dm, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 7 chords (Dm7, Gm7, Em7b5, A7, Fm7, Bb7, Ebmaj7) across 2 sections: A (first half) → A (second half). 2 of the 7 shapes are open chords and Em7b5 is the one that needs a barre. It sits at roughly 150 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: Ebmaj7 → Em7b5, once.
- Difficulty
- Intermediateno barre needed
- Key
- Dmwith no capo
- Tempo
- 150BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 72 open, 5 with a barre
- Sections
- 2each with its own progression
Chords in Blue Bossa
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar, four beats to the bar: the shape lands on beat one and the dots mark the beats after it, so you can see where the change falls without any lyrics. Where a section has no strumming pattern written, play one chord per bar. Tap a bar to hear it.
Lyrics are not reproduced for this song: they are still in copyright and this site has no licence to publish them. The chords, structure, strumming and sing-along timing are all here. Songs whose words are public domain →
A (first half)♩=150
A (second half)♩=150
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Blue Bossa
Blue Bossa is where most guitarists meet the minor two-five, and it is the friendliest place to meet it: eight bars that repeat, two chords per phrase, and a bossa feel slow enough to think in. This arrangement is written in D minor, which keeps every chord inside a single position on the neck. The first half sits on Dm7 and Gm7 — two minor seventh shapes a string apart — then turns around with Em7b5 into A7 and back home.
The second half lifts to Fm7 and Bb7 before landing on Ebmaj7, which is the relative major of D minor. A three-note shape for each seventh chord is plenty here: root on the low strings, then the top three. Comping is rhythm first. Play short chords on beat one and on the and of two, with your fingers lifting immediately so nothing rings over the next chord.
Work at 110 BPM with a metronome and loop the first four bars, then the full eight plus the second half, then the whole form without stopping. The Em7b5 to A7 to Dm7 turnaround deserves its own five minutes, since you will meet it again in dozens of standards. Do not add single-note lines until the comping is locked, and keep your voicings small so the bass note still speaks.
How to practise Blue Bossa
Four steps computed from this sheet: the order the shapes are easiest to learn in, the changes that really occur in the progressions above, where each chord turns up, and the tempo ladder up to the recorded speed.
Learn the shapes easiest first
A7 (x-0-2-0-2-0, beginner) → Dm7 (x-x-0-2-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre) → Gm7 (3-5-3-3-3-3, intermediate, needs a barre) → Fm7 (1-3-1-1-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre) → Bb7 (x-1-3-1-3-1, intermediate, needs a barre) → Ebmaj7 (x-6-8-7-8-6, intermediate, needs a barre) → Em7b5 (0-1-0-0-3-x, advanced)
2 of the 7 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave Em7b5 until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
Em7b5 → A72×A7 → Dm71×Dm7 → Gm71×Ebmaj7 → Em7b51×
These counts come from the progressions on this page, so they are the changes you will actually play, not a generic list of pairs to practise.
Know where each chord turns up
- Dm7A (first half)
- Gm7A (first half)
- Em7b5every section
- A7every section
- Fm7A (second half)
- Bb7A (second half)
- Ebmaj7A (second half)
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 90 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 90 → 113 → 135 → 150 BPM. The recorded feel is around 150 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 135 for longer than feels necessary.
Every section here uses the same set of shapes, so there is no section to single out. Whatever you can play once, you can play all the way through.
Playing Blue Bossa with a capo
This sheet needs no capo. Each card shows what you would finger at that capo position so the song still sounds exactly as written. Useful when the shapes above are awkward, or when you want to sing it higher without learning new chords.
No capoas written
Dm7 Gm7 Em7b5 A7 Fm7 Bb7 Ebmaj7
2 of 7 stay open
Fret 2
Cm7 Fm7 Dm7b5 G7 Ebm7 Ab7 C#maj7
1 of 7 stay open
Fret 5
Am7 Dm7 Bm7b5 E7 Cm7 F7 Bbmaj7
3 of 7 stay open
Fret 7
Gm7 Cm7 Am7b5 D7 Bbm7 Eb7 Abmaj7
2 of 7 stay open
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If Blue Bossa clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More intermediate songs to learn after this one: Hotel California, Hey Jude, Wish You Were Here, The Weight.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Blue Bossa turns up across all 80 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
29bars of this chord across the songbook
6songs use this shape
Most often followed by G7, 13×.
13bars of this chord across the songbook
4songs use this shape
Most often followed by A7, 1×.
2bars of this chord across the songbook
1songs use this shape
Most often followed by A7, 2×.
47bars of this chord across the songbook
14songs use this shape
Most often followed by Dm7, 10×.
5bars of this chord across the songbook
3songs use this shape
Most often followed by Bb7, 3×.
10bars of this chord across the songbook
3songs use this shape
Most often followed by A7, 3×.
10bars of this chord across the songbook
3songs use this shape
Most often followed by Bb7, 1×.