The Nearness of You Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis | Niels Dalgaard
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The Nearness of You
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Hoagy Carmichael · 1938 · F major · AABA, 32 bars

The Nearness of You — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

A ii-V walks the tonic up to IV in two bars, and then IV is turned minor. The borrowed chord lands on the bar you have just been taught to hear as home, which is why the move stings rather than merely colours.

ii-V-I Secondary dominants Modal interchange

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt Valid harmonic variant

Section: A1 · Bars 1–4

Fmaj7 | Cm7 F7 | Bbmaj7 | Bbm6

Bar 4 is the borrowed minor iv. Charts also print B♭dim7 there — same function, same voice-leading — and bar 4 is a well-known reharmonisation point.

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
Low
Chords analysed
5

Read in F major, the key of the tune. Taken on its own, with nothing around it, this excerpt is just as easy to hear in Bb minor — 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
Fmaj7ITonicFmaj7 is the tonic of F. It is where the progression is at rest.High
Cm7ii/IVPredominantCm7 is the ii of a secondary ii-V. Together with F7 it prepares Bb, so the pair tonicizes IV without leaving the key.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
Bbmaj7IVPredominantBbmaj7 is the IV chord of F: subdominant. It moves away from the tonic without creating the pull of a dominant.High
Bbm6ivPredominantBbm6 is a minor iv in a major key, borrowed from the parallel minor. Its b6 pulls down into the third of the tonic — one of the most recognisable sounds in the repertoire.Medium

What the analyzer found in it

ii/IV - I7 - IVCm7 - F7 - Bbmaj7

A complete ii-V-I in Bb. 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

Read in F major, these bars come out as I – ii/IV – I7 – IV – iv. Inside those 5 chords there is a complete ii-V-I and a chord borrowed from the parallel mode. The shortest way in is a two-voice reduction: third and seventh only, slowly. F7 contributes A and Eb, and where that pair resolves is the whole story of the passage. You will meet the same move again in Blues for Alice, All Blues and So What, transposed and at a different pace.

How the rest of The Nearness of You goes

A ballad that stays close to home for most of its length and gets its colour almost entirely from borrowed chords rather than from modulation — minor-quality harmony appearing inside a major key, used to darken a phrase without moving anywhere. The melody sits low and uses long values, so the piece is often chosen as a first ballad for a singer. For an instrumentalist the difficulty is the opposite of the usual one: there is very little happening, and the tune will expose a thin sound instantly.

The Nearness of You on record

Hoagy Carmichael wrote the music in 1938 and Ned Washington the lyric. Glenn Miller had the first hit with it, but the readings that matter to jazz players came later — Sarah Vaughan’s, and Norah Jones’s much later still, which reintroduced it to a general audience. It is one of the few standards whose jazz reputation rests more on singers than on instrumentalists.

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 →

Related

ii-V-I

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

Read →

Secondary dominants

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

Read →

Modal interchange

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

Read →

Blues for Alice

Charlie Parker · 1951 · F major

Chord progression →

All Blues

Miles Davis · 1959 · G major

Chord progression →

So What

Miles Davis · 1959 · D dorian / E♭ dorian

Chord progression →

Jazz chord progressions

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

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