Mack the Knife Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A · Bars 1–7

Bb | Cm7 F7 | Bb | Cm7 F7 | Bb | Cm7 F7 | Bb

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Project 03 · Harmony

The complete chord progression of Mack the Knife is in JamShed

Play it with double bass, drums and piano, at your tempo and in your key.
Loop the bars that trip you up and mute your own instrument.
Print the whole chart for the music stand: chords only, or with the analysis, the triad pairs and the pentatonics.

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Harmonic analysis

Key

B♭ major

Tonal center

Bb

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

10

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
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
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
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.

ii - V7 - ICm7 - F7 - Bb

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

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 →

The complete analysis of Mack the Knife — every chord of the whole form, with its Roman numeral and its ii–V–Is marked on the chart — is in JamShed with the Practice Pass, ready to print. Open it in JamShed →

Why this example matters

Numbered against B♭ major, the excerpt is I – ii – V7. Inside those 10 chords there is a complete ii-V-I. Take the roots away and keep the third and seventh. In F7 that is A and Eb. Those two notes decide where the progression is going, and hearing them move is worth more than naming the chords. Autumn Leaves, All The Things You Are and Tune Up use the same device, which is the argument for learning it once properly rather than three times by accident.

How the rest of Mack the Knife goes

Built on a very short repeating harmonic cycle — essentially a turnaround — restated for the whole form, which is why performances almost always modulate upward between choruses to create the progression the harmony does not supply. Those key changes are part of the performance tradition rather than the composition, and a group playing it needs to agree in advance on how many and where.

Mack the Knife on record

Kurt Weill wrote it in 1928 for The Threepenny Opera, to a Bertolt Brecht text, as a ballad about a murderer. It became an American pop hit three decades later through Bobby Darin, whose 1959 version with its escalating key changes is the model for almost every jazz performance since — including Ella Fitzgerald’s celebrated 1960 Berlin recording, in which she forgets the words and improvises a replacement lyric.

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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Mack the Knife — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

The Jazz Guitar Shortcut

Mastering Jazz Guitar Voicings

The Jazz Roadmap Lite

The complete chord progression of Mack the Knife is in JamShed

Harmonic analysis

What the analyzer found in it

Why this example matters

How the rest of Mack the Knife goes

Mack the Knife on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Autumn Leaves

All The Things You Are

Tune Up

Jazz chord progressions