fee fi fo fum A section

[unisontrills]

first post

could anybody help me make better sense of the harmony for the A section of Wayne Shorter's "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum"? here's the chords,

Eb7 D7(#9) | Gmi7 Abma7 | Bma7 D7 | Dmi7 G7 |

Eb7 D7(#9) | Gmi7 Abma7 | Gb7 F7 | Bb7 ||

so i get that the first bar is some sort of move towards Gmi7 but the Eb7 is confusing me, my only guess is that it's a tritone sub of a secondary dominant (V of V, Eb is b5 of A) is that it? and what's with the Abma7 and bar 3? bar 4 is a ii V yeah. also what's with bar 7? is it the secondary dominant tritone sub move again?

thanks for any insights

[paulkogut]

This is one of my favorite tunes, but it can be hard to get a handle on if you look at it only in terms of ii-V-I functional harmony. When I'm approaching a Wayne tune, I try to learn the melody really well, look for common tones between chords, consider pentatonics, keep an ear out for chromatic possibilities, and try to learn the melody really well. Here's a clip of me and Sheryl Bailey at last years Red Hook Festival Fee Fi Fo Fum-Paul Kogut & Sheryl Bailey - YouTube

[Nikkorico_03]

The first two measures are two ii-V-i's. You have the Eb7-Abmaj7, but inside that ii-V-I is another minor ii-V-i in G minor. Check out Tune Up by Miles Davis or Countdown by Coltrane. Same kind of thing.

[davekain]

I play this tune often. I've noticed with a lot of the threads here that people seem to over analyze some things. A chord that can come from out of nowhere is usually just that. In my opinion, just play the change. I think Paul is right in looking for common tones. That can really help you make musical phrases between awkward less conventional harmonic movement.

As far as playing lines, I just think of what the changes are the same way I would approach attempting to play over any standard or bebop tune. Using arps, appropriate scales, appropriate pentatonics, upper and lower neighbors. yada yada yada.

Finding ways to voice lead through the changes can also really help you see how the harmony lays out thus helping to find logical phrases and lines.