How High the Moon Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A · Bars 1–8

Gmaj7 | Gmaj7 | Gm7 | C7 | Fmaj7 | Fmaj7 | Fm7 | Bb7

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

G major

Tonal center

G

Confidence

Low

Chords analysed

8

Read in G major, the key of the tune. Taken on its own, with nothing around it, this excerpt is just as easy to hear in F major — a few bars are often not enough to fix a tonic, and that ambiguity is a real property of the music rather than a gap in the analysis.

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Gmaj7	I	Tonic	Gmaj7 is the tonic of G. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Gmaj7	I	Tonic	Gmaj7 is the tonic of G. It is where the progression is at rest.	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
Fmaj7	I	Tonic	Fmaj7 is the tonic of F. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Fmaj7	I	Tonic	Fmaj7 is the tonic of F. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Fm7	ii/bVI	Predominant	Fm7 is the ii of a secondary ii-V. Together with Bb7 it prepares D#, so the pair tonicizes bVI without leaving the key.	Medium
Bb7	V7/bVI	Dominant	Bb7 is functioning as V7/bVI: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of D#, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at bVI instead. Also readable as subV7/ii.	Low

What the analyzer found in it

ModulationF major

Bars 3-6 are heard in F major: the harmony cadences there and stays long enough to become a key.

ii - V7 - IGm7 - C7 - Fmaj7

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

ii/bVI - V7/bVIFm7 - Bb7

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

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 G major, these bars come out as I – ii – V7 – ii/bVI – V7/bVI. Inside those 8 chords there is a complete ii-V-I and at least one secondary dominant. The shortest way in is a two-voice reduction: third and seventh only, slowly. C7 contributes E and A#, and where that pair resolves is the whole story of the passage. You will meet the same move again in Autumn Leaves, All The Things You Are and Tune Up, transposed and at a different pace.

How the rest of How High the Moon goes

The excerpt gives the engine: a major chord, then a ii-V that pulls the whole thing down a whole tone, then the same move again. The tune keeps descending that way through the first half, reaches the flat side, and turns back toward the tonic through a chain of cadences in the second. It is the cleanest example in the repertoire of a form built entirely out of sequence, which is precisely why bebop musicians took it apart — the harmony is regular enough that a soloist can predict two bars ahead and use the room to build a line rather than react to one.

How High the Moon on record

Morgan Lewis wrote it for the 1940 Broadway revue Two for the Show, with a lyric by Nancy Hamilton. It became a jazz vehicle almost immediately and then a pop hit in 1951, when Les Paul and Mary Ford recorded a multitracked version that sold in enormous numbers. Ella Fitzgerald’s live scat readings, taken at tempos the songwriters never imagined, turned it into a display piece, and Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology” is written over these same changes.

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 →

How High the Moon — 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 How High the Moon goes

How High the Moon on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Secondary dominants

Autumn Leaves

All The Things You Are

Tune Up

Jazz chord progressions