Autumn Leaves Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis | Niels Dalgaard
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Autumn Leaves
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Joseph Kosma · 1945 · B♭ major / G minor · AABC, 32 bars

Autumn Leaves — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

The tune every player learns ii-V-I on, because it does the major one and the minor one back to back in the same eight bars. The opening four chords are a plain ii-V-I in B♭ that overshoots onto IV — and the piece is really in G minor, B♭’s relative.

ii-V-I

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–4

Cm7 | F7 | Bbmaj7 | Ebmaj7

This is a short excerpt quoted for analysis, not the full chart, and this composition is very likely still in copyright. Published versions and recordings disagree with each other about the rest of the tune, and often about these bars too.

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.

Start here Project 03 · Harmony

Jazz Harmony

From tradition to the expectation framework · For any instrument Project 05 · Harmony

Harmonic Narrative

A practical method for creating and understanding harmonic progressions through expectation Project 04 · Jazz guitar

Jazz Guitar Comping

Creating direction through harmony, rhythm and the expectation framework

Harmonic analysis

Key
Bb major
Tonal center
Bb
Confidence
High
Chords analysed
4
ChordRoman numeralFunctionWhat it is doingConfidence
Cm7iiPredominantCm7 is the ii chord of Bb: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.High
F7V7DominantF7 is the dominant of Bb. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.High
Bbmaj7ITonicBbmaj7 is the tonic of Bb. It is where the progression is at rest.High
Ebmaj7IVPredominantEbmaj7 is the IV chord of Bb: subdominant. It moves away from the tonic without creating the pull of a dominant.High

What the analyzer found in it

ii - V7 - ICm7 - F7 - Bbmaj7

A complete ii-V-I in Bb. Predominant, dominant, tonic: the sentence jazz harmony is built out of.

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 →

Why this example matters

Read in Bb major, these bars come out as ii – V7 – I – IV. Inside those 4 chords there is a complete ii-V-I. The shortest way in is a two-voice reduction: third and seventh only, slowly. F7 contributes A and Eb, and where that pair resolves is the whole story of the passage. You will meet the same move again in All The Things You Are, Tune Up and Solar, transposed and at a different pace.

How the rest of Autumn Leaves goes

The four bars quoted here are the first phrase, and the tune spends the rest of its thirty-two bars alternating the same cadence between two keys a minor third apart: the major ii-V-I in B♭ that opens it, and the minor ii-V-i in G that answers. The C section is where players get caught. It begins on the minor cadence, then walks a long stepwise descent over a pedal-ish bass before the final resolution, and because the two keys share a signature it is easy to play the whole tune in B♭ and never signal that G minor is home. The test is whether your line treats the F♯ as an arrival or as a passing note.

Autumn Leaves on record

Kosma wrote it in 1945 as “Les feuilles mortes”, to a Jacques Prévert lyric; Johnny Mercer supplied the English words a few years later, and the English title is the one the jazz repertoire kept. The recording that made it a jam-session staple is Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else from 1958, where Miles Davis plays the introduction and takes the first solo — the arrangement is so widely copied that the intro is now treated as part of the tune. Bill Evans recorded it the following year on Portrait in Jazz in a version that trades the melody between piano and bass and is the reference for anyone playing it in a trio.

Analyze this progression

The excerpt is loaded and editable. Swap a chord for its tritone substitute, delete the preparation, borrow one from the parallel minor, and watch which numerals change and which do not.

Open in Jazz Harmony Analyzer →

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Miles Davis · 1953 · D major

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Solar

Miles Davis · 1963 · C minor

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