The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
  1. #1

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    I'm working on the comping for this lovely tune:

    I got the sheet in iRealPro which works fine, but in the end the band plays a turnaround. Can one of you guys figure out which chords these are? And is there some rule of thumb that can be used for these turnarounds?

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Ok so rather than tell you what it is, here’s some help. with turnarounds or really any chord progression, you have two big hints.

    1 - the melody note
    3 - the bass

    Here we have a strong sustained melody note, so all the chords in the arrangement need to accommodate it. In this case he’s singing the tonic note of the key for a while. That rules out the usual 1-6-2-5 stuff right away (you can hear it’s not that anyway, right)

    So listen to bass and let me know what you hear. You can then start to guess at the chords accordingly.

    chords that go with 1 include
    #ivm7b5
    IVm
    I (duh)
    biiio7
    IIm7
    II7
    bIImaj7
    V7sus4
    bVImaj7

    So between that and the bassline i reckon you’ll work it out.

    By the time you’ve seen a few turnarounds you start to get a feel for what chords go with what melodies.

  4. #3
    Thanks for your help!
    I think the first time of the turnaround they play Dmin7, G7, Am7, Ab7 and then it should start on the Dmin7 again, but it sounds different: the bass keeps going lower, probably chromatic.

    So I'd say:
    Dmin7, G7, Am7, A7
    Gm7b5, F#min7, Cmaj7

    But it's not correct I'm afraid. It doesn't help that the clip is tuned in something else than 440mHz

  5. #4

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    The first turnaround is Ami7, A7/E, Ab7/Eb, G7

    They approach the Ami7 by playing the II V before it as
    Dmi7 G7 G#dim7

  6. #5
    Thanks guys!
    I still have a lot to learn.