Afro Blue Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Bars 1–2 and 9–12 of the form, joined

Fm7 | Fm7 | Eb | Eb | Db Eb | Fm7

The books behind this page

Every one of these tunes is assembled out of the same handful of harmonic resources. Jazz Harmony is those resources, explained in the order in which they build on each other.

See all the books

Start here Project 03 · Harmony

Play Afro Blue in JamShed

The whole form, not just these bars: JamShed’s trio — double bass, drums and piano — plays it with you at the tempo and in the key you choose. Loop the bars that trip you up, mute the instrument you play, share the link.

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Harmonic analysis

Key

F minor

Tonal center

F

Confidence

Medium

Chords analysed

7

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Fm7	i	Tonic	Fm7 is the tonic of Fm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Fm7	i	Tonic	Fm7 is the tonic of Fm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Eb	bVII	Other	Eb is bVII — the subtonic of natural minor.	Medium
Eb	bVII	Other	Eb is bVII — the subtonic of natural minor.	Medium
Db	bVI	Predominant	Db is bVI of Fm, a predominant on the sixth degree of natural minor.	High
Eb	bVII	Other	Eb is bVII — the subtonic of natural minor.	Medium
Fm7	i	Tonic	Fm7 is the tonic of Fm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High

High, medium and low next to each numeral are judgements about musical context, not probabilities. A low rating marks a bar that can honestly be read more than one way. How the ratings are decided →

The complete analysis of Afro Blue — every chord of the whole form, with its Roman numeral and its ii–V–Is marked on the chart — is in JamShed with the Practice Pass, ready to print. Open it in JamShed →

Why this example matters

Against a tonic of F minor the passage numbers as i – bVII – bVI. Inside those 7 chords there is a chord borrowed from the parallel mode. There is no dominant to lean on, so the phrase is carried by whichever note refuses to settle. Sustain each chord long enough to hear which one that is before moving on. Once you can hear it here, it is hard to miss in Blues for Alice, All Blues and So What.

How the rest of Afro Blue goes

A short modal form in F minor, sixteen bars in the usual charts: the tonic minor for most of the A section, and a bridge built from E♭ and D♭ major triads returning to F minor. The interest is rhythmic rather than harmonic — the melody and the accompaniment can be felt in three or in two at the same time, and good versions keep both alive.

Afro Blue on record

Mongo Santamaría, the Cuban percussionist, wrote and recorded it in 1959. John Coltrane’s quartet made it a jazz standard with the 1963 recording on Live at Birdland, where McCoy Tyner’s piano and Elvin Jones’s drums turn the polyrhythm into the subject of the performance.

Analyze this progression

Load the progression and start altering it. Every edit is re-read from scratch, so you can test a hunch about one chord without rewriting the rest.

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Afro Blue — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

The Jazz Guitar Shortcut

Harmonic Narrative

The Jazz Roadmap Lite

Play Afro Blue in JamShed

Harmonic analysis

Why this example matters

How the rest of Afro Blue goes

Afro Blue on record

Analyze this progression

Related

Modal interchange

Blues for Alice

All Blues

So What

Jazz chord progressions