Limehouse Blues Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A

C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 | Fmaj7 | Fmaj7 | Fmaj7 | Fmaj7

This is a short excerpt, not the full chart. The composition dates from 1922 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.

Start here Project 03 · Harmony

Harmonic analysis

Key

F major

Tonal center

F

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

8

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
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
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
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
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
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

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 F major, these bars come out as V7 – I. There is no substitution and no borrowing in it at all, which is exactly why it is worth playing: it is the sound the substitutions are substituting for. The shortest way in is a two-voice reduction: third and seventh only, slowly. C7 contributes E and Bb, 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 Limehouse Blues goes

Despite the name it is not a blues but a thirty-two-bar song, and its harmony is unusually static — long stretches sit on a single dominant chord before finally resolving, which is closer to a vamp than to the cadence-driven writing of its contemporaries. Those held dominants are the reason the tune is taken fast: at a slow tempo there is very little happening, and at speed the delayed resolution becomes an engine.

Limehouse Blues on record

Philip Braham wrote it in 1922 for a London revue, with a lyric by Douglas Furber. It became a staple of the gypsy jazz repertoire through Django Reinhardt, who recorded it several times, and it is still far more common in that setting than in mainstream jazz. Reinhardt’s tempos are the ones that established how it is normally played.

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 →

Limehouse Blues — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

Harmonic Narrative

Jazz Guitar Comping

Harmonic analysis

Why this example matters

How the rest of Limehouse Blues goes

Limehouse Blues on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Autumn Leaves

All The Things You Are

Tune Up

Jazz chord progressions