Today, I'll use recording me from volume 1, and show you what the process is when we create an
analysis of a jazz standard. This song's harmonic progression seems pretty simple at first glance.
The first chord is Am7, and the key signature, with no flats, indicates we could be in C major or
A minor. If we look at the first chord, it's an Am, and the last chord in the song is E7 - the
V7 of a minor. So everything is pointing to the key of A minor. So let's set the map up to the
key of A minor and add the I minor. The first thing to notice is that the i minor is paired
with the melodic minor scale by default. Remember, in jazz the best scale to use over a I minor is
the melodic minor. You get the natural 6th and natural 7th, which are great notes to use on a
I minor. So here's an Ammaj7. And here's Am6. Both are great chords to set the listeners
ears to the minor key. But look closer at the chord symbol and the melody. It says Am7
and the melody lands on F# both pointing at an A minor Dorian scale. Then we must choose the
correct chord-scale for this chord, and luckily for us, Mapping Tonal Harmony offers a Dorian scale on
a I minor. Now, the next chord is Cm7, which clearly doesn't belong in the key of A minor. It
is true it could be the sub/V (right here,) but this chord should eventually target the V7, which
is not what's happening here. This Cm7 is functioning as the ii of Bb. In fact, we can
see a 2-5-1 in the key of Bb: Cm7 F7 Bbmaj7. This could only be a direct
modulation - probably to the key of Bb. So, let's see what happens if we do that. I'll add a direct
modulation to the key of Bb and enter iim7 - which is Cm7, a V7 here (the F 7,) and the
Imaj7, which is Bbmaj7 (here.) So far, so good. Now, the chord still makes sense in the key of
Bb. A ii - V of the bVII, borrowed from the minor, and resolving as expected to the bVIImaj7.
This is a very common move - turning the Imaj7 into a minor chord, which becomes the ii/bVII -
as you can see indicated by this headless arrow that Mapping Tonal Harmony is showing here. Now the
same trick will take us to the bVI. See? the bVIImaj7 turns into a m7, making it the
ii/bVI. So this is a simple ii - V of bVI. Abm7 - Db7 - Gbmaj7 (the bVI
in the key of Bb,) and now a ii - V of V. Also very standard, except this Fmaj7 should be an F7 - if
we're staying in Bb - since the V is a dominant chord. So this must be a modulation to F, which is
also very common - modulating to the key of the V. So we can insert the Gm7 as the ii/V
in the key of Bb. The C7 is the V7/V in the key of Bb, and then it is used as a
pivot chord, turning into the V7 of the new key. So let's change to the key of F on the C7. And
there it is. The C7 is now a pivot chord. It was the V7/V in the key of Bb, and it is now
functioning as the V7 in the new key of F. And the last chord is an E7#9 which
is theV7/iii in the key of F. I can easily get the #9, if i pair it with the major
blues scale - instead of the default Mixolydian b9 b13. Now, since we're going back to the key
of A minor - at the beginning of the song - we can add a new pivot chord modulation right here - on the E7#9.
So let's change to the key of A minor and the E7 is now functioning as theV7 in the new
key. You must be thinking: "Great! That's the analysis!" Actually, this is where it gets interesting, because
if we look at the melodic structure of the song, something stands out right away, which will make
this analysis ok, but not perfect. If we take a closer look at the melody - on the Am7 - it goes...
...and on the Cm7 it sounds like this...
So, this is clearly a transposition of both the melody and the harmony. Look, the first note is
the natural 13 - an F# in Am7 - and an A natural on the Cm7, which implies Dorian
for both chords. And all the rest of the notes are the same degrees against their current chord. OK,
I can hear you thinking: "So what? Everything looks good. The Am7 says Dorian, and the Cm7
says Dorian also. We modulated to Bb - right on the Cm7 - which agrees with the melodic line
being a transposition. Everything looks right to me!" Well, not quite. When we look at the melody,
the transposition is a minor 3rd up, but our modulation was from A minor to Bb major.
And even worse, we're modulating from a minor key to a major key. But nothing changed, if we look
at the melody against the harmony. But the worst problem is that the Am7 is playing the role
of the tonic here, and the Cm7 is playing the role of the iim7. This is a red flag
that we absolutely cannot ignore. So, my first intuition was to reconsider this Am7 as
also being a iim7, which implies we're in the key of G major. Then the Dorian scale makes total
sense - with Am7 being the iim7. Also, the song modulates to Bb, which is a minor
3rd up exactly as the melody does. But... there's always a but... where's the G chord? How could we
be in G without a G chord ever being played, not to mention, there's no D7 from the dominant region!
How can we be in the key of G major without ever playing a chord in the tonic region, or
the dominant region. Well, we can't! So what's going on here? Actually, the issue is that we're trying to
fit this section of the song into a tonal setting, and this song is modal in the first eight bars. It
only changes to a tonal progression after this F7. What's confusing is that, at the end of the
song, we have this E7#9, which is the V7 in the key of A minor. and a V7 in a minor key
implies that we're in a tonal piece of music. Had we been in Dorian throughout the entire song, the V
chord would have been a m7 chord. This is where we can push the limits a bit of Mapping
Tonal Harmony, and take it into modal music. So the Am7 was a Dorian im7 chord,
and then the Cm7 is a direct modulation to C Dorian, which I can do simply by adding a
direct modulation to C minor, and inserting the im7 with the Dorian scale. And Mapping Tonal
Harmony is now showing a direct modulation from a i minor Dorian to another minor Dorian. See?
We have never moved outside our home- the tonic - which is actually a Dorian tonic. When we arrived at the
F7, we should already be in the key of Bb, and in a tonal setting. So let me simply repeat the
Cm7 on the first two beats of this bar (here,) and insert a pivot chord modulation
from the key of C minor to the key of Bb major. The Cm7 was the one minor in C
Dorian, and will now become the iim7 in the key of Bb. It's still a Dorian sound,
but should now be reinterpreted as a iim7 in the key of Bb. Now the map clearly
represents the harmonic progression. Remember, the first section is modal, and the second is
tonal. And here we can see the paths to the bVII, that turns into a m7, taking us
to the bVI chord which - as I said before - you'll find in so many tunes. Okay, I hope this
was helpful. And it's also showing all the work we do to create the analyses of the songs in
the Jazz Standards Progressions Book. Thanks for watching, don't forget to subscribe, and
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