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Hi, in this jazz blues progression: A7 (add13) D9 A7(add13) Emi9 A7(b13) D9 Dmin9 G7(add13) A7(add13) Ab7 (add13) G7(add13) F#7(b13) Bmi7(9) E7(#9) A7(add13) F#7 Bmin7 E7(b9)
What is the function of the Dmin9-G7(add 13)-A7 section?
What is the use of the bVII7 chord in this Blues in A?. Thanks!!
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06-08-2023 02:35 PM
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Thanks a lot!. Ill check this out
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The basis of this movement is going from the major subdominant via the minor subdominant back to the tonic chord which gives a chromatic movement from the thirds of the subdominants to the fifth of the tonic. The IVm is then made the II of a II-V (IVm7 to bVII7 to I a.k.a backdoor cadence).
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Note also the second occurance of G7 is just the tritone of C#7 (III7 of the key). So, Ab-G7-F#7-Bmin7-E7-A7 is just cycle of 4's in A: 7-3-6-2-5-1.
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"lukatherknopfler"??? Interesting blend of influences there... (I'm a big Luke guy myself)
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if you haven't seen it..a Utube of Luke and Larry Carlton .. so very wild stuff (can't find it right now)
Originally Posted by ruger9
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As always, the actual function is "tension and release." These different ways of getting back to the tonic are just different flavors of tension and release. Originally Posted by lukatherknopfler
When I want to analyze chord progressions, I find that the thing to do is strip out the extensions in the chords, such as the 13th, etc., and consider it in terms of the basic tetrads (A7, D7, etc.). Then it is much easier to see. This particular progression heavily over-does the extensions. That clouds what the progression is doing, which is entertainingly ambiguous in my opinion. Since we don't have any bar lines to reference, I don't know how many beats there are for each chord. There are 18 chords for 12 bars.
For example: A7 to D7 is a I-IV, a standard blues move; then there is what may be a I-v (lowercase = minor, uppercase = major) which looks like an A7 to Emin7 but could be an A7 to A7sus4. In that case, instead of I-IV-I-v the progression is I-IV-I. Either can be a valid interpretation.
Or the Emin7 could be a modal interchange for E7 which temporarily shifts the tonal center from A dominant to D Major. Combined with the following A7 to D7, we'd have V-ii-V-I in D replacing the usual 2-4 bars of plain D7 one would see in an A blues. So basically we're just tarting up the usual four bars each of I-IV of the blues progression to give it some interest.
The Dmin7 can be heard as another modal interchange (D7 to Dmin7) followed by the G7, making it a ii-V in C except it goes back to the A7, creating the backdoor already mentioned.
Then the A7-Ab7-G7-Gb7 walkdown is a cycle of 4ths with tritone subs (A7-D7-G7-C7 but with Ab7 subbed for the D and Gb7 subbed for the C7), the Gb7 enharmonically becomes an F#7 leading to Bmin7 and E7 for a ii-V turnaround back to the top. Nice!
On the whole, the fundamentals of this progression are a pretty fun interpretation on the blues form, don't you think?
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First of all, simplify it. And write it out clearly! Originally Posted by lukatherknopfler
A7 - D7 - A7 - Em7/A7
D7 - Dm7/G7 - A7/Ab7 - G7/F#7
Bm7 - E7 - A7/F#7 - Bm7/E7
Normally, the bar with Dm7/G7 in it would be another D7 or a D#o, right? But whoever wrote this one thought they'd do something different with it.
The Dm7/G7 is what they call a 'backdoor' approach to the I chord.
Actually, it's not the G7 which is important, it's the Dm. You've probably heard of using the IV minor to get back to the I. So, instead of
A - E7 - A -%
they play
A - Dm - A - %
Or both the IV and its minor, so
A - D/Dm - A - %
This is the same. In this case the chord before the Dm is a D chord anyway, so
D - Dm - A
But they've extended the Dm7 by including its V7:
D7 - Dm7/G7 - A7
That's all, and it resolves quite nicely. One technical reason the G7 works is because it shares two notes with E7, B and D.
So the function of the Dm7/G7 is to resolve back to the I chord, only in a sneaky manner
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The IVm/bVII7 is one of two commonplace ways to get from a IV chord back to a I chord. The other is #IVo7.
You will find one or the other in bar 5 of many blues progressions, and in hundreds of jazz standards.
The IVm/bVII remains a popular choice in modern songwriting. See also ‘minor plagal’ and ‘backdoor progression’ and be on the look out for more examples.
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I think you are mixing up things a little here. E7 to A is not the same as Dm to A -- although a minor II-V would be notated as Dm to E7 in traditional sheet music because they would see a Bm7b5 as a Dm with the 6th in the bass, Bm7b5 = Dm/B, Monk or Dizzy would call it that way, but then the Dm is a suspension to the E7. Originally Posted by ragman1
First of all, simplify it. And write it out clearly!
A7 - D7 - A7 - Em7/A7
D7 - Dm7/G7 - A7/Ab7 - G7/F#7
Bm7 - E7 - A7/F#7 - Bm7/E7
Normally, the bar with Dm7/G7 in it would be another D7 or a D#o, right? But whoever wrote this one thought they'd do something different with it.
The Dm7/G7 is what they call a 'backdoor' approach to the I chord.
Actually, it's not the G7 which is important, it's the Dm. You've probably heard of using the IV minor to get back to the I. So, instead of
A - E7 - A -%
they play
A - Dm - A - %
Or both the IV and its minor, so
A - D/Dm - A - %
This is the same. In this case the chord before the Dm is a D chord anyway, so
D - Dm - A
But they've extended the Dm7 by including its V7:
D7 - Dm7/G7 - A7
That's all, and it resolves quite nicely. One technical reason the G7 works is because it shares two notes with E7, B and D.
So the function of the Dm7/G7 is to resolve back to the I chord, only in a sneaky manner
One of the cornerstones in any 12 bar blues progression [the very few exceptions someone might bring up here will not prove me wrong] is going to the subdominant in measure 5 so one has to look at things from a subdominant perspective and not from a dominant perspective.
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BTW in traditional blues forms they sometimes would use IV to bVI to I (D7 to F7 to A7 in the key of A) which comes from the mediant relationship between F and Dm but F7 is also related to D#o respectively Ebo, so it is somehow a mixture of the minor subdominant and the raised fourth diminished passing chords.
You could even mix that with the backdoor as in
| D7 / / / | F7 / Dm7 G7 | A7 ~
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I find these sorts of questions ‘why?’ And ‘where does it come from?’ to be philosophically problematic and in the end mostly irrelevant.
People do it because they do it and we are accustomed to their sound. Some moves (#IVdim7) fall out of fashion. In general I prefer historical and cultural explanations than (pseudo)scientific ones because they teach you more about music.
physics envy is one hell of a drug.
the main thing a musician needs to know are
- when one is likely to pop up
- what it sounds like
- what it can be swapped out for (IVm, IIm7b5)
- what it’s melodic implications are (b6 and b7 so modal interchange to IV Melodic minor/I minor)
- be able to spot it in lots of tunes
- master it in all twelve keys
- deal with it when improvising
and they need to have that info internalised in their playing and their ears and ready to go.
none of which address ‘why’ this happens so much (well it’s voice leading)Last edited by Christian Miller; 06-09-2023 at 04:02 AM.
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So that’s a good harmony textbook answer. Originally Posted by Bop Head
However the purposes of actually playing jazz one is very frequently swapped out for the other.
one of the last things I learned from Barry was that when playing a G7 sound on Bm7b5 E7 there is no compulsion to play the leading tone G#. You can see this in dozens of lines.
The German c19 ideas of functionality don’t quite apply to jazz lines. It’s more nebulous. The propulsive role of the leading tone is a lot weaker (we can see that in maj7 chords.) Subdominant/dominant is elided somewhat. Possibly the influence of trad sub Saharan harmony? See also gospel harmonisations. And the boomer dominant (which came from black church music via Motown and so on)
in this way the backdoor dominant can still be in popular music considered a dominant despite lacking the essential note traditionally needed for a dominant chord - the leading tone.
Peter Bernstein said in my lesson ‘there’s only I and V really. And IV which is kind of its own thing.’ That’s like Reimann’s idea of course, but the use of the word ‘kind’ is very important. It’s pretty grey.
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V to I is an authentic or perfect cadence. Originally Posted by Bop Head
IV to I is called a plagal cadence.
IV minor (iv) to I is called a minor plagal cadence.
Cadence - Wikipedia
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I wish people wouldn't say this kind of stuff. It may be true conceptually but in practice it's crude nonsense. Play any decent ballad using only V and I (or i) and all the subtleties of the tune are destroyed. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Nor does it enhance improvisation for the same reason.
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With slight reharmonisation for a guitar accompaniment, I see this as a Killer Joe Blues comped on strings DGBE from Bars 1-8, then Root E Drop-3's for Bars 9-12, but with Do7 Mid4 and Abo7 Top4 as Drop-2's:
[A13/7b] [D9/3] [A13/7b] [Em9/3b Eb9/3]
[D9/3] [Dm9/3b G13/7b] [A7/6 Ab7/6] [G7/6 Gb7+5]
[Bm9] [Bb13-9 Bb7-5] [AM6 AM6 F#7/5 F#7-5] [Bm7 Bm9 Do7 Abo7] [AM]
That being said, my harmony is old school.
The Backdoor Changes = The Sunshine Progression
Jazz books e.g. 'Tuba Skinny and Shaye Cohn' by Pops Coffee are available from Amazon.: Search results for sunshine (playing-traditional-jazz.blogspot.com)
Pops Coffee's Blog is an excellent resource for old school trad jazz players.
He's now retired, but the blog is available.
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You are right - it’s more a conceptual chunking thing rather than ‘you shall play only the notes of the V chord’ - Peter (like Barry) is putting a large number of things in the loose category of being a V chord; including the bVII7. Barry uses scales to do this. Originally Posted by ragman1
It’s useful to know that rhythm changes breaks down to I-V-I-V-I-IV-I-V-I even if you wouldn’t play just that.
‘Jazz is a decorative art’ - which means you decorate the bare bones. That way you aren’t locked into realising the chord symbols like a chord scale robot. The problem is the latter is how people are often taught and understand music.
That said even V-I is hip if you have rhythm.
Presuming you are actually a musician who has something interesting to play.
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