I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–5

Bb | G7 | Cm7 | F7 | Bb

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

Bb major

Tonal center

Bb

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

5

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Bb	I	Tonic	Bb is the tonic of Bb. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
G7	V7/ii	Dominant	G7 is functioning as V7/ii: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of C, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at ii instead.	High
Cm7	ii	Predominant	Cm7 is the ii chord of Bb: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
F7	V7	Dominant	F7 is the dominant of Bb. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
Bb	I	Tonic	Bb is the tonic of Bb. It is where the progression is at rest.	High

What the analyzer found in it

ii - V7 - ICm7 - F7 - Bb

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

V - IF7 - Bb

The progression closes with an authentic cadence in Bb.

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

Numbered against Bb major, the excerpt is I – V7/ii – ii – V7. Inside those 5 chords there is a complete ii-V-I and at least one secondary dominant. Take the roots away and keep the third and seventh. In G7 that is B and F. Those two notes decide where the progression is going, and hearing them move is worth more than naming the chords. Stella by Starlight, How High the Moon and Ornithology use the same device, which is the argument for learning it once properly rather than three times by accident.

How the rest of I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ goes

A thirty-two-bar song whose A sections move through secondary dominants at a steady, almost march-like rate, giving the piece its characteristic forward push. The melody is built from short repeated phrases with rests between them — written for a character to sing while moving around a stage, and the gaps are where the acting happened. The bridge is conventional and short, which keeps the momentum from breaking.

I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ on record

From Porgy and Bess, 1935, with a lyric by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward, sung by the title character. It is less often played than Summertime from the same score, but it appears on the 1958 Miles Davis and Gil Evans orchestral recording of the opera, and that arrangement is the reason it is in the instrumental repertoire at all.

Analyze this progression

Open these chords in the analyzer and change them. Move one chord, substitute a dominant, take the ii away — the reading updates and tells you what you just did.

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I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ — 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 I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ goes

I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Secondary dominants

Stella by Starlight

How High the Moon

Ornithology

Jazz chord progressions