Straight, No Chaser Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis | Niels Dalgaard
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Straight, No Chaser
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Thelonious Monk · 1951 · F major · 12-bar blues

Straight, No Chaser — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Harmonically the plainest blues on this list, and deliberately so. Monk puts everything into the placement of one repeated phrase, which shifts against the bar line until you lose count.

ii-V-I Roman numeral analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt Valid harmonic variant

Form: 12-bar blues · Bars 1–12

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

Bars 11–12 are the plain V–I turnaround. Many charts print the bebop turnaround F7 D7 | Gm7 C7 there instead; both are played.

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

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
F major
Tonal center
F
Confidence
High
Chords analysed
12
ChordRoman numeralFunctionWhat it is doingConfidence
F7I7TonicF7 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
Bb7IV7PredominantBb7 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
F7I7TonicF7 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
F7I7TonicF7 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
Bb7IV7PredominantBb7 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
Bb7IV7PredominantBb7 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
F7I7TonicF7 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
F7I7TonicF7 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
Gm7iiPredominantGm7 is the ii chord of F: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.High
C7V7DominantC7 is the dominant of F. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.High
F7I7TonicF7 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
C7V7DominantC7 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.

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

Against a tonic of F major the passage numbers as I7 – IV7 – ii – V7. Inside those 12 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 Now’s the Time, Billie’s Bounce and C Jam Blues.

How the rest of Straight, No Chaser goes

An ordinary twelve-bar blues carrying a head made of a single short phrase that is restated again and again, each time starting on a different beat. The pitches barely move; the displacement is the composition. Because the phrase keeps landing in the wrong place relative to the bar, a listener counting along loses the downbeat while the harmony underneath stays completely regular — which is exactly the joke, and it only works because the blues form is so familiar that the ear keeps trying to correct it.

Straight, No Chaser on record

Thelonious Monk recorded it in 1951. It became one of the two or three of his tunes that non-specialists know, helped considerably by Miles Davis recording it on Milestones in 1958. It is also the friendliest entry point into his writing: the harmony asks nothing unusual of a rhythm section, so a group can play it well on a first reading and spend its attention on the rhythmic problem, which is the only problem the tune has.

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.

Open in Jazz Harmony Analyzer →

Related

ii-V-I

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Roman numeral analysis

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Now’s the Time

Charlie Parker · 1945 · F major

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Billie’s Bounce

Charlie Parker · 1945 · F major

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C Jam Blues

Duke Ellington · 1942 · C major

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