Editing Jazz scale (section)

{{Short description|Any musical scale used in jazz}}
{{More citations needed|date=October 2020}}
{{Image frame|content=<score sound="1">
{
\override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
\relative c' {
  \clef treble
  \time 6/4 c4^\markup { "C whole tone scale" } d e fis gis ais \time 4/4 c1 \bar "||"
  \time 4/4 <c, e gis bes>1 \bar "||"
} }
</score>
|width=310|caption=One [[Chord-scale system|chord-scale]] option for an augmented dominant seventh chord (+7th) is the [[whole tone scale]].<ref>Hatfield, Ken (2005). ''Jazz and the Classical Guitar Theory and Applications'', p. 121. {{ISBN|0-7866-7236-6}}.</ref>}}

A '''jazz scale''' is any [[musical scale]] used in [[jazz]]. Many "jazz scales" are common scales drawn from [[European classical music|Western European classical music]], including the [[diatonic scale|diatonic]], [[whole-tone scale|whole-tone]], [[octatonic scale|octatonic]] (or diminished), and the [[Mode (music)|modes]] of the ascending [[Minor_scale#Melodic_minor_scale|melodic minor]]. All of these scales were commonly used by late nineteenth and early twentieth-century composers such as [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov|Rimsky-Korsakov]], [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]], [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]] and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]], often in ways that directly anticipate jazz practice.<ref>Tymoczko, Dmitri (1997). "The Consecutive-Semitone Constraint on Scalar Structure: A Link Between Impressionism and Jazz", ''Integral'' 11:135–79.</ref> Some jazz scales, such as the eight-note [[bebop scale]]s, add additional [[Chromatic passing tone|chromatic passing tones]] to the familiar seven-note diatonic scales.