You already learned the jazz blues from the E-string roots, felt very sophisticated for about a week, and then discovered that living down at the nut means your ring finger is doing yoga it never signed up for. So here's the plot twist: we're moving the whole party up to the A string.
This 29-second clip is jazz blues comping — the polite art of feeding a soloist chords while pretending you're relaxed — using simple voicings that all start on the A string. Same 12 bars, same dominant-flavoured chords, new neighbourhood. Think of it as the companion piece to the E-string version, except now everything sits comfortably in the middle of the fretboard.
How A-string comping actually works
The idea is dead simple and secretly powerful: instead of naming every dominant chord from a root on the sixth string, you find that same root on the fifth (A) string. Your I7, IV7 and V7 now all sit within a couple of frets of each other, which means the chords barely move as you cycle through the twelve-bar form. Less jumping, smoother voice leading, and — crucially — you can actually see the soloist instead of staring at the headstock. These are close cousins of drop 2 voicings, trimmed down to the three or four notes that carry the harmony: the third and seventh do the heavy lifting, the root just tells you where you are.
The concrete takeaway: learn both the E-string and A-string shape for each chord, then choose whichever one is closest to where your hand already is. That single habit is the entire difference between comping that clunks and comping that flows. Feed it a lazy, Freddie-Green-style quarter-note pulse and you sound like you were born in a smoky club.
Grab the PDF and Guitar Pro file, drill it until your pinky forgives you, and if you want the E-string companion plus every voicing broken down, it's all waiting on my Patreon — where the only cover charge is your undying gratitude.