Billie’s Bounce Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Form: 12-bar blues · Bars 1–12

F7 | Bb7 | F7 | Cm7 F7 | Bb7 | Bdim7 | F7 | D7 | Gm7 | C7 | F7 D7 | Gm7 C7

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

Harmonic analysis

Key

F major

Tonal center

F

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

15

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 is the tonic, but built as a dominant seventh — the sound that defines the blues. The tonic keeps a b7 and stays at home anyway. Also readable as V7/IV.	Medium
Bb7	IV7	Predominant	Bb7 is the IV of a blues, built as a dominant seventh. In this context that is its normal quality, not a dominant of anything.	High
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 is the tonic, but built as a dominant seventh — the sound that defines the blues. The tonic keeps a b7 and stays at home anyway.	High
Cm7	ii/IV	Predominant	Cm7 is the ii of a secondary ii-V. Together with F7 it prepares Bb, so the pair tonicizes IV without leaving the key.	High
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 is the tonic, but built as a dominant seventh — the sound that defines the blues. The tonic keeps a b7 and stays at home anyway. Also readable as V7/IV.	Medium
Bb7	IV7	Predominant	Bb7 is the IV of a blues, built as a dominant seventh. In this context that is its normal quality, not a dominant of anything.	High
Bdim7	#iv°7	Other	Bdim7 does not take a functional role in F. It sits on #IV and is best heard as colour, or as a sign that the tonal center has moved.	Low
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 is the tonic, but built as a dominant seventh — the sound that defines the blues. The tonic keeps a b7 and stays at home anyway.	High
D7	V7/ii	Dominant	D7 is functioning as V7/ii: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of G, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at ii instead.	High
Gm7	ii	Predominant	Gm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
C7	V7	Dominant	C7 is the dominant of F. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 is the tonic, but built as a dominant seventh — the sound that defines the blues. The tonic keeps a b7 and stays at home anyway.	High
D7	V7/ii	Dominant	D7 is functioning as V7/ii: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of G, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at ii instead.	High
Gm7	ii	Predominant	Gm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
C7	V7	Dominant	C7 is the dominant of F. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High

What the analyzer found in it

ii/IV - I7 - IV7Cm7 - F7 - Bb7

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

ii - V7 - I7Gm7 - C7 - F7

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

ii - V7Gm7 - C7

A ii-V pointing at F, which never arrives. The preparation is complete, the resolution is not.

half cadenceC7

The progression stops on the dominant of F — a half cadence. It is unfinished on purpose.

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

Against a tonic of F major the passage numbers as I7 – IV7 – ii/IV – #iv°7 – V7/ii – ii – V7. Inside those 15 chords there is a complete ii-V-I and at least one secondary dominant. Strip it to two notes per chord, the third and the seventh, and play it under tempo. F7 gives you A and Eb; follow that pair from chord to chord and the voice leading becomes audible in a way the root motion never makes it. Once you can hear it here, it is hard to miss in Now’s the Time, Straight, No Chaser and C Jam Blues.

How the rest of Billie’s Bounce goes

The same twelve bars and the same session as Now’s the Time, but the head takes the opposite approach: instead of one riff repeated, it is a through-composed line that changes shape as the chords change and marks each arrival. Where the standard blues form allows a quick ii-V before the turnaround, this tune uses it, so the piece sits exactly at the boundary between the plain blues and the bebop blues — one step of added harmony, no more.

Billie’s Bounce on record

Recorded on 26 November 1945 for Savoy, the session generally treated as the first full documentation of bebop under Parker’s own name. The title honours Billy Shaw, the booking agent who handled Parker and Gillespie. Playing this and Now’s the Time back to back is the standard way of demonstrating what a bebop line does to a blues, because everything except the melody is held constant between them.

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Billie’s Bounce — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

Harmonic Narrative

Jazz Guitar Comping

Harmonic analysis

What the analyzer found in it

Why this example matters

How the rest of Billie’s Bounce goes

Billie’s Bounce on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Secondary dominants

Roman numeral analysis

Now’s the Time

Straight, No Chaser

C Jam Blues

Jazz chord progressions