The Rhythm Changes Bridge Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis | Niels Dalgaard
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The Rhythm Changes Bridge
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George Gershwin · 1930 · B♭ major · 8 bars

The Rhythm Changes Bridge — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Eight bars, four chords, and every one of them a dominant seventh resolving into the next. It is the clearest demonstration in the repertoire that a secondary dominant only needs one thing to work: somewhere to go.

Secondary dominants

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Section: B / Bridge · Bars 17–24

D7 | D7 | G7 | G7 | C7 | C7 | F7 | F7

This is a short excerpt, not the full chart. The composition dates from 1930 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

Jazz Harmony

From tradition to the expectation framework · For any instrument Project 05 · Harmony

Harmonic Narrative

A practical method for creating and understanding harmonic progressions through expectation Project 04 · Jazz guitar

Jazz Guitar Comping

Creating direction through harmony, rhythm and the expectation framework

Harmonic analysis

Key
Bb major
Tonal center
Bb
Confidence
Low
Chords analysed
8

Read in Bb major, 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.

ChordRoman numeralFunctionWhat it is doingConfidence
D7V7/viDominantD7 is functioning as V7/vi: 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 vi instead.Low
D7V7/viDominantD7 is functioning as V7/vi: 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 vi instead.High
G7V7/iiDominantG7 is functioning as V7/ii: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of C, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at ii instead.Low
G7V7/iiDominantG7 is functioning as V7/ii: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of C, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at ii instead.High
C7V7/VDominantC7 is functioning as V7/V: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of F, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at V instead.Low
C7V7/VDominantC7 is functioning as V7/V: a secondary dominant. It is the dominant of F, not of the home key, so it borrows the pull of a V-I and points it at V instead.High
F7V7DominantF7 is the dominant of Bb. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.High
F7V7DominantF7 is the dominant of Bb. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.High

What the analyzer found in it

half cadenceF7

The progression stops on the dominant of Bb — 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 Bb major the excerpt reads V7/vi – V7/ii – V7/V – V7. Inside those 8 chords there is at least one secondary dominant. Play it slowly with only two voices — the third and seventh of each chord. In D7 those are Gb and C, and watching where that pair goes next tells you more about the progression than the root movement does. The same device turns up in Stella by Starlight, How High the Moon and Ornithology, in other keys and at other tempos.

How the rest of The Rhythm Changes Bridge goes

This page isolates the bridge on purpose, because it is the part that has to be learned separately. Where the A sections stay anchored, the bridge simply leaves: it starts on a dominant built on the third degree and works around the cycle of fifths, four chords, two bars each, arriving back on the home dominant exactly in time for the last A. Nothing resolves along the way — each chord is a dominant that moves to another dominant — so there is no cadence to lean on for sixteen bars, and that is what makes it the part players stumble on.

The Rhythm Changes Bridge on record

The bridge acquired a nickname of its own, “the Sears Roebuck bridge”, because it was as standard and as widely available as anything in the mail-order catalogue. Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning”, Rollins’s “Oleo” and Parker’s “Anthropology” all use it unchanged while replacing everything else, which tells you how settled it was: the A sections were where a composer signed their name, and the bridge was common property that nobody bothered to alter.

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.

Open in Jazz Harmony Analyzer →

Related

Secondary dominants

What this device is, and the other standards in the library that use it.

Read →

Stella by Starlight

Victor Young · 1944 · B♭ major

Chord progression →

How High the Moon

Morgan Lewis · 1940 · G major

Chord progression →

Ornithology

Charlie Parker · 1946 · G major

Chord progression →

Jazz chord progressions

The families every standard is assembled from, with examples from the library.

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