Jazz Blues Substitution Questions

[harpwood_gr]

Lets say we have the following blues progression:

|C7|F7|C7|%|
|F7|%|C7|Em7 A7| etc...

Sometimes when I am studing a 12/8 shuffle blues, I see the following changes at the meters 7 and 8, instead of the above:

|Cmaj7 Dm7|Em7 Ebm7|

my questions:

1. the Cmaj7 chord is a reharmonization?
2. If Cmaj7 is a reharmonization, then the Dm7 chord is a diatonic superimposition? If Cmaj7 is not a reharmonization, then what kind of superimposition or substitution is the Dm7 chord?
3. If the Ebm7 was a Eb7, I could say with great confidence, that the Eb7 is a tritone substitution of the A7 chord (Em7-A7), but it's not! So what kind of substitution is the Ebm7? A reharmonization of the tritone substituted A7 (=Eb7)?

[marcwv]

I really don't think it's necessary to justifiy and analyze every time someone subsitutes changes. The only reason that chord sequence is being used is that someone thought it sounded good!
Anyway the Ebmin7 is just a chromatic passing chord between the Emin7 and Dmin7! Nuf said!
Marc

[Rob MacKillop]

It's just a way of approaching Dm as the start of a ii/V/I - it is used in Stormy Monday, usually in the key of G.

[larry graves]

People actually study the blues... What next!........

[JonR]

People actually study the blues... What next!........

Studying the blues is OK. It's a matter of what tools you use for the job (so the study is effective and result is worthwhile).
I wouldn't use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail...

Of course, part of the problem is this is a jazz forum, and most of us here have whole collections of screwdrivers of all shapes and sizes. A screw with a flat top and no thread is a little baffling at first...

[harpwood_gr]

Thank you for your time to anwser my thread... but my 1 and 2 questions are still unaswered

@marcwv I disagree, we should study and analize everything that chalenge our minds in music instead, of accepting them for the reason that sound right.

Talking about stormy monday, at bars 9-10 we meet those changes

|Am7|Cm7|

Usualy at this point there's a ii-V (Am7-D7), but there's a ii-iv? What excactly is going on here?

After much consideration I tend to believe that

a) Am7 could be a sub of D7 (because Am11=D11) and Cm7 could be a sub of Eb7 (because they have 3 common notes), so the Am7-Cm7 is a sub for D7#9-Eb9

b)the Cm7 chord is some kind of reharmization of D7 so the Am7-D7 somehow becomes Am7-Cm7

What do you think? Either a or b is correct? Both a and b are correct? If b is correct, please explain it to me...

[AlainJazz]

Lets say we have the following blues progression:

|C7|F7|C7|%|
|F7|%|C7|Em7 A7| etc...

Sometimes when I am studing a 12/8 shuffle blues, I see the following changes at the meters 7 and 8, instead of the above:

|Cmaj7 Dm7|Em7 Ebm7|

my questions:

1. the Cmaj7 chord is a reharmonization?
2. If Cmaj7 is a reharmonization, then the Dm7 chord is a diatonic superimposition? If Cmaj7 is not a reharmonization, then what kind of superimposition or substitution is the Dm7 chord?
3. If the Ebm7 was a Eb7, I could say with great confidence, that the Eb7 is a tritone substitution of the A7 chord (Em7-A7), but it's not! So what kind of substitution is the Ebm7? A reharmonization of the tritone substituted A7 (=Eb7)?

In a lot of older tunes substitute dominant and minor chords. The Eb7 would be the proper tritone sub but Ebm works here too. Think of for example a 1625 progression:

Cmaj7 Am D7 G7

Many older tunes use:
Cmaj7 A7 D7 G7

Another way to think of it is just a simple chromatic movement towards Dm

[AlainJazz]

Forgot to mention: maybe to make it more apparent: this could've been played as

Em7 A7 Ebm7 Abm7 Dm7

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Forgot to mention: maybe to make it more apparent: this could've been played as

Em7 A7 Ebm7 Abm7 Dm7

Do you mean Ab7, not Abm7?

[AlainJazz]

Do you mean Ab7, not Abm7?

Yes, sorry I meant of course Ab7, just a regular II-V

[ColinO]

Forgot to mention: maybe to make it more apparent: this could've been played as

Em7 A7 Ebm7 Abm7 Dm7

Ala Satin Doll.

[Max1tani]

It could be a Abm7 too.
you can sub a minor chord for a dominant, making it a dominant b3 chord.

[Max1tani]

and about Am-Cm. man you can do so much on that. Starting with ii-v(Am to D7)
then you can do the same thing with Cm to F7.
to more complicated like F#m7b5 to B7 over Am-Cm.

[meritonemusic]

Lets say we have the following blues progression:

|C7|F7|C7|%|
|F7|%|C7|Em7 A7| etc...

Sometimes when I am studing a 12/8 shuffle blues, I see the following changes at the meters 7 and 8, instead of the above:

|Cmaj7 Dm7|Em7 Ebm7|

my questions:

1. the Cmaj7 chord is a reharmonization?
2. If Cmaj7 is a reharmonization, then the Dm7 chord is a diatonic superimposition? If Cmaj7 is not a reharmonization, then what kind of superimposition or substitution is the Dm7 chord?
3. If the Ebm7 was a Eb7, I could say with great confidence, that the Eb7 is a tritone substitution of the A7 chord (Em7-A7), but it's not! So what kind of substitution is the Ebm7? A reharmonization of the tritone substituted A7 (=Eb7)?

Agreed, Ebm is a passing chord.. and substitutions are really up to you in the end to tweak as you like...

Have you tried Giant Steps on the first 4 bars of a jazz blues?

Cmaj7 Eb7 - Abmaj7 B7 - Emaj7 G7 - Cmaj7 C7 -


F etc


good fun!

Here's a jazz blues in C to practice on

and a playlist of jazz blues backing track in other keys as well HERE

[jtizzle]

Lets say we have the following blues progression:

|C7|F7|C7|%|
|F7|%|C7|Em7 A7| etc...

Sometimes when I am studing a 12/8 shuffle blues, I see the following changes at the meters 7 and 8, instead of the above:

|Cmaj7 Dm7|Em7 Ebm7|

my questions:

1. the Cmaj7 chord is a reharmonization?
2. If Cmaj7 is a reharmonization, then the Dm7 chord is a diatonic superimposition? If Cmaj7 is not a reharmonization, then what kind of superimposition or substitution is the Dm7 chord?
3. If the Ebm7 was a Eb7, I could say with great confidence, that the Eb7 is a tritone substitution of the A7 chord (Em7-A7), but it's not! So what kind of substitution is the Ebm7? A reharmonization of the tritone substituted A7 (=Eb7)?

To answer your questions:
1) It kind of is a reharmonization. The sound you get from any type of F chord to a C chord is that of a IV-I sound, many people associate that with church music (some call it the "amen" cadence). F7 to CMaj (which sounds a litte more as a resolution) gives a more "bluesy" sound, and is heavily associated with gospel music.
Now, it depends what style of blues you're playing, if you want to call it a reharmonization or not. The typical blues sound that you know, bebop blues, is all based on dominant chord. But it started before that with guys like Robert Johnson, delta blues kind of stuff. That type of music isn't really based on dominant chords, although you will hear it because of the use of the minor pentatonic sound over a major chord, so you'll get some b7's in there. But in reality, I wouldn't notate that style of music as 7th chords, but the sound that you get on a blues is generally that of a dominant tonic. So to clarify things, I would call the CMaj7 a reharm, simply because you are really changing the actual and implied sound by making it major and not dominant (think of the chord tones as well as extensions and possible alterations).

2) The D-7 is simply there to create movement. It creates motion through diatonic stepwise motion. It could or could not be there, not a necessary chord and you could substitute that with many things. Off the top of my head, D, F, B, or Ab, diminished, F7, or B7, and many more options. You could even simply make it an inversion of CMaj7.

3) People can call it a passing chord, but "passing chord" is really a misnomer. Even if there is such thing as a "passing chord" it should have enough value for analysis. Just saying it's a passing chord makes you think that you can throw an Eb-7 any time after an Em7 when that's not the case.
The Eb-7 functions as an anticipation to the upcoming D-7 chord (which I'm assuming is what comes next on the changes you are supplying based on the harmony). Let me explain:
Typical blues goes like this:
l I l (IV) l % l % l
l IV l % l I l % l
l V l (IV) l I l % l

What your original set of changes is implying, is that you're going to delay the V chord in bar 9 with a ii chord preceding it, making the last line:
l ii V l (IV) l I l % l
You could also make the ii chord last the whole bar and replace the IV chord with the V, as the IV isn't really a necessary chord there.

The A7 implies this since it is the secondary dominant of D something. Could be minor in simple terms, but your second set of changes implies something else.
First, think of the A7 as being already part of the tonal area of D something, since it is already preparing that sound.
That means that you could just as easily replace that A7 with a D chord, and it works because diatonic stepwise motion is an acceptable way to move from chord to chord as we saw in the first measure of your second set of changes (C Maj - D min). Now, the D something chord could be a ii chord. However, another acceptable thing you could do is make it into a secondary dominant. D7 can lead to G7 just as well as D-7 can.
Now, if you're with me so far, that line is:
l CMaj7 DMin7 l Emin7 D7 l

It gets easier from here. The tritone sub of D7 is Ab7, so that measure becomes l Emin7 Ab7 l
From there, you could throw in the ii of Ab7, which is Eb-7. Now, no one said you have to approach a chord with it's dominant chord. You could easily approach it with it's ii, but here you're mixing and matching the ii of a chords tritone sub to un-substituted (is that even a word?) V chord, which results in:
l CMaj7 Dmin7 l Emin7 Ebmin7 l

Another way to look at it would be setting up a chromatic ii-V by using the tritone sub ii V of D7 into G7.
The complete set of changes would look something like:
l CMaj7 Dmin7 l Emin7 Ebmin7 Ab7 l Dmin7 G7 l .... and so on.
The Ab7 is omitted to obscure the tonicization, the parallel movement from Ebmin to Dmin sounds more vague than having an Ab7 or D7 chord go to G7.

I encourage people to stop using the term "passing", such as "passing tone" or "passing chord", because that offers no theoretical value in analysis. It's simply a more eloquent way of saying "it's there because it's there". Anything that's chromatic has analytical value, as diminute as it looks.
Hope it answers your questions.


@meritone: why would you ask him to try Giant Steps changes if he doesn't understand more basic forms of reharmonizations?

[harpwood_gr]

Wow! Thank you very much for your detailed answer!