Nardis Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A1 · Bars 1–4

Em7 | Fmaj7 | B7 | Cmaj7

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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Start here Project 03 · Harmony

Play Nardis in JamShed

The whole form, not just these bars: JamShed’s trio — double bass, drums and piano — plays it with you at the tempo and in the key you choose. Loop the bars that trip you up, mute the instrument you play, share the link.

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Harmonic analysis

Key

E minor

Tonal center

E

Confidence

Low

Chords analysed

4

Read in E minor, the key of the tune. Taken on its own, with nothing around it, this excerpt is just as easy to hear in C 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
Em7	i	Tonic	Em7 is the tonic of Em. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Fmaj7	bII	Other	Fmaj7 does not take a functional role in Em. It sits on bII and is best heard as colour, or as a sign that the tonal center has moved.	Low
B7	V7	Dominant	B7 is the dominant of Em. In a minor key it borrows its major third from harmonic minor — that raised note is the leading tone.	High
Cmaj7	bVI	Predominant	Cmaj7 is bVI of Em, a predominant on the sixth degree of natural minor.	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 →

The complete analysis of Nardis — 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

Read in E minor, these bars come out as i – bII – V7 – bVI, and the analyzer leaves the F major seventh without a function: it is colour, the flat second of the Phrygian mode, not a step in a cadence. Play the four chords slowly and listen to two notes. F, the flat second, sits on top of the tonic in the second bar; one bar later B7 puts D♯ under it, the leading tone of harmonic minor. The tune is the argument between those two versions of E minor.

How the rest of Nardis goes

Thirty-two bars, AABA. Each A is the excerpt followed by A minor, F major seventh and a turn through E major back to E minor; the bridge alternates A minor and F major seventh and then passes through a ii–V into C before the last A. Many players treat it as close to modal, keeping the Phrygian colour of the F major seventh in the ear all the way through.

Nardis on record

Miles Davis wrote it for Cannonball Adderley’s Portrait of Cannonball, recorded in July 1958 with Bill Evans on piano, and never recorded it himself. Evans did, again and again: it first appeared on his trio album Explorations (1961), and it stayed in his repertoire for the rest of his life, which is why the tune is now heard as his as much as Davis’s.

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 →

Nardis — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

The Jazz Guitar Shortcut

Harmonic Narrative

The Jazz Roadmap Lite

Play Nardis in JamShed

Harmonic analysis

Why this example matters

How the rest of Nardis goes

Nardis on record

Analyze this progression

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