I Got Rhythm Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis | Niels Dalgaard
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I Got Rhythm
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George Gershwin · 1930 · B♭ major · AABA, 32 bars

I Got Rhythm — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

The most reused thirty-two bars in jazz. The A section is a turnaround repeated until it becomes a groove; the bridge is four dominants in a row, each one the dominant of the next. Public domain, so the whole A section is printed here.

ii-V-I Secondary dominants

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–8

Bb G7 | Cm7 F7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 | Bb Bb7 | Eb Ebm6 | Bb G7 | Cm7 F7

This is a short excerpt, not the full chart. The composition dates from 1930 and is old enough that it is very likely in the public domain in the United States, which is why the excerpt runs longer here — but copyright status varies by territory and by edition, so treat that as context, not as legal advice.

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.

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Harmonic analysis

Key
Bb major
Tonal center
Bb
Confidence
High
Chords analysed
16
ChordRoman numeralFunctionWhat it is doingConfidence
BbITonicBb is the tonic of Bb. It is where the progression is at rest.High
G7V7/iiDominantG7 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
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
Dm7ii/iiPredominantDm7 is the ii of a secondary ii-V. Together with G7 it prepares C, so the pair tonicizes ii without leaving the key. Also readable as iii.High
G7V7/iiDominantG7 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
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
BbITonicBb is the tonic of Bb. It is where the progression is at rest.High
Bb7I7TonicBb7 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
EbIVPredominantEb is the IV chord of Bb: subdominant. It moves away from the tonic without creating the pull of a dominant.High
Ebm6ivPredominantEbm6 is a minor iv in a major key, borrowed from the parallel minor. Its b6 pulls down into the third of the tonic — one of the most recognisable sounds in the repertoire.Medium
BbITonicBb is the tonic of Bb. It is where the progression is at rest.High
G7V7/iiDominantG7 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
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

What the analyzer found in it

ii - V7Cm7 - F7

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

ii/ii - V7/ii - iiDm7 - G7 - Cm7

A complete minor ii-V-i in Cm, with the half-diminished ii and a dominant that borrows its leading tone from harmonic minor.

ii - V7 - ICm7 - F7 - Bb

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

ii - V7Cm7 - F7

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

half cadenceF7

The progression stops on the dominant of Bb — 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

Read in Bb major, these bars come out as I – V7/ii – ii – V7 – ii/ii – I7 – IV – iv. Inside those 16 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. G7 contributes B and F, and where that pair resolves is the whole story of the passage. You will meet the same move again in Stella by Starlight, How High the Moon and Ornithology, transposed and at a different pace.

How the rest of I Got Rhythm goes

Thirty-two bars, AABA, and the second most-used form in jazz after the blues. The A sections rock between the tonic and its ii-V, barely leaving home; all the harmonic distance is in the bridge, which drops the key entirely and runs four dominant chords around the cycle of fifths, two bars each, before dropping back. Note that the song as Gershwin published it has a two-bar tag at the end that the jazz form discards — the thirty-two-bar version musicians call “rhythm changes” is already an edit, and has been since the 1930s.

I Got Rhythm on record

Written for the 1930 musical Girl Crazy, where it was introduced by Ethel Merman in her Broadway debut, with a lyric by Ira Gershwin. What happened next is the important part: because a chord progression cannot be copyrighted, musicians could write and record new melodies over these changes without paying anyone, and hundreds did. Rhythm changes became the common ground of the bebop era, and a large fraction of the tunes recorded between 1945 and 1955 are built on this form.

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 →

Related

ii-V-I

What this device is, and the other standards in the library that use it.

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Secondary dominants

What this device is, and the other standards in the library that use it.

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Stella by Starlight

Victor Young · 1944 · B♭ major

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How High the Moon

Morgan Lewis · 1940 · G major

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Ornithology

Charlie Parker · 1946 · G major

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Jazz chord progressions

The families every standard is assembled from, with examples from the library.

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