Now’s the Time Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Form: 12-bar blues · Bars 1–12

F7 | Bb7 | F7 | F7 | Bb7 | Bb7 | F7 | D7 | Gm7 | C7 | F7 D7 | Gm7 C7

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

F major

Tonal center

F

Confidence

High

Chords analysed

14

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 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
Bb7	IV7	Predominant	Bb7 is the IV of a blues, built as a dominant seventh. In this context that is its normal quality, not a dominant of anything.	High
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 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.	High
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 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
Bb7	IV7	Predominant	Bb7 is the IV of a blues, built as a dominant seventh. In this context that is its normal quality, not a dominant of anything.	High
Bb7	IV7	Predominant	Bb7 is the IV of a blues, built as a dominant seventh. In this context that is its normal quality, not a dominant of anything.	High
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 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.	High
D7	V7/ii	Dominant	D7 is functioning as V7/ii: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of G, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at ii instead.	High
Gm7	ii	Predominant	Gm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	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
F7	I7	Tonic	F7 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.	High
D7	V7/ii	Dominant	D7 is functioning as V7/ii: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of G, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at ii instead.	High
Gm7	ii	Predominant	Gm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	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

What the analyzer found in it

ii - V7 - I7Gm7 - C7 - F7

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

ii - V7Gm7 - C7

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

half cadenceC7

The progression stops on the dominant of F — 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

In F major the excerpt reads I7 – IV7 – V7/ii – ii – V7. Inside those 14 chords there is a complete ii-V-I and at least one secondary dominant. Play it slowly with only two voices — the third and seventh of each chord. In F7 those are A and Eb, and watching where that pair goes next tells you more about the progression than the root movement does. The same device turns up in Billie’s Bounce, Straight, No Chaser and C Jam Blues, in other keys and at other tempos.

How the rest of Now’s the Time goes

A twelve-bar blues with no substitutions at all: the three chords in their standard places, held long enough that each one is unmistakable. The melody is a riff repeated across all three, which means the same phrase has to make sense over the tonic, the subdominant and the dominant in turn — and it does, because it is built from notes common to all three. That is the whole lesson of the tune and the reason it is taught before any blues with added chords.

Now’s the Time on record

Charlie Parker recorded it in November 1945 at the Savoy session that also produced Billie’s Bounce, with Dizzy Gillespie and a very young Miles Davis on the date. Four years later a nearly identical riff appeared as the rhythm-and-blues hit “The Hucklebuck” under a different composer’s name, and the resemblance was noted at the time. It remains the standard first blues head for students, ahead of anything with a more complicated chart.

Analyze this progression

Take these bars into the analyzer and interfere with them. The fastest way to learn what a chord was doing is to remove it and read what the analysis says instead.

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Now’s the Time — 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 Now’s the Time goes

Now’s the Time on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Secondary dominants

Roman numeral analysis

Billie’s Bounce

Straight, No Chaser

C Jam Blues

Jazz chord progressions