Recorda Me Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: A into B · Bars 1–11

Am7 | Am7 | Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 | Bbm7 Eb7 | Abmaj7

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

A minor

Tonal center

A

Confidence

Low

Chords analysed

8

Read in A minor, the key of the tune. Taken on its own, with nothing around it, this excerpt is just as easy to hear in Ab 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
Am7	i	Tonic	Am7 is the tonic of Am. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Am7	i	Tonic	Am7 is the tonic of Am. 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
Bbmaj7	I	Tonic	Bbmaj7 is the tonic of Bb. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Bbm7	ii	Predominant	Bbm7 is the ii chord of Ab: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
Eb7	V7	Dominant	Eb7 is the dominant of Ab. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
Abmaj7	I	Tonic	Abmaj7 is the tonic of Ab. It is where the progression is at rest.	High

What the analyzer found in it

ModulationBb major

Bars 3-4 are heard in Bb major: the harmony cadences there and stays long enough to become a key.

ModulationAb major

Bars 5-6 are heard in Ab major: the harmony cadences there and stays long enough to become a key.

ii - V7 - ICm7 - F7 - Bbmaj7

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

ii - V7 - IBbm7 - Eb7 - Abmaj7

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

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

Against a tonic of A minor the passage numbers as i – ii – V7 – I. Inside those 8 chords there is a complete ii-V-I. Strip it to two notes per chord, the third and the seventh, and play it under tempo. F7 gives you A and Eb; follow that pair from chord to chord and the voice leading becomes audible in a way the root motion never makes it. Once you can hear it here, it is hard to miss in Autumn Leaves, All The Things You Are and Tune Up.

How the rest of Recorda Me goes

A minor tune that spends its first half sitting on the tonic over a bossa figure and its second half moving briskly through a chain of ii-V pairs that step downward, each in a new key. The two halves therefore make almost opposite demands: the first asks a soloist to sustain interest without harmonic help, the second asks them to keep up. That split is what makes it a useful teaching piece — it tests two unrelated skills inside one chorus.

Recorda Me on record

Joe Henderson recorded it in 1963 on Page One, the same album that introduced Blue Bossa — two of the most-played tunes in the teaching repertoire came from one debut record. The title is Portuguese and is usually printed without the accent it should carry. Henderson recorded it again in later years at slower tempos that make the static first half considerably harder.

Analyze this progression

Load the progression and start altering it. Every edit is re-read from scratch, so you can test a hunch about one chord without rewriting the rest.

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Recorda Me — 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 Recorda Me goes

Recorda Me on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Autumn Leaves

All The Things You Are

Tune Up

Jazz chord progressions