Time Remembered Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Bars 1–4

Bm9 | Cmaj7#11 | Fmaj7#11 | Em9

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.

See all the books

Start here Project 03 · Harmony

Play Time Remembered in JamShed

The whole form, not just these bars: JamShed’s trio — double bass, drums and piano — plays it with you at the tempo and in the key you choose. Loop the bars that trip you up, mute the instrument you play, share the link.

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Harmonic analysis

Key

B minor

Tonal center

B

Confidence

Low

Chords analysed

4

Read in B minor, the key of the tune. Taken on its own, with nothing around it, this excerpt is just as easy to hear in E 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.

Chord	Roman numeral	Function	What it is doing	Confidence
Bm9	i	Tonic	Bm9 is the tonic of Bm. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Cmaj7#11	bII	Other	Cmaj7#11 does not take a functional role in Bm. It sits on bII and is best heard as colour, or as a sign that the tonal center has moved.	Low
Fmaj7#11	#IV	Other	Fmaj7#11 does not take a functional role in Bm. It sits on #IV and is best heard as colour, or as a sign that the tonal center has moved.	Low
Em9	iv	Predominant	Em9 is the iv chord of Bm: the minor subdominant.	High

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 →

The complete analysis of Time Remembered — every chord of the whole form, with its Roman numeral and its ii–V–Is marked on the chart — is in JamShed with the Practice Pass, ready to print. Open it in JamShed →

Why this example matters

Numbered against B minor the excerpt is i – bII – #IV – iv, and two of those four chords get no function at all: the analyzer can name them but not explain them, because nothing here prepares, resolves or cadences. That is the point. Voice the four chords so that each one moves to the next by the smallest possible step, play them slowly, and let the top note make a melody. In a progression with no dominant, the line on top is what carries the phrase.

How the rest of Time Remembered goes

Twenty-six bars with no repeated section, a new chord almost every bar, and almost every chord either a minor ninth or a major seventh with a raised eleventh. The roots move by half steps, fourths and tritones in no fixed pattern; what holds the tune together is that each voicing moves to the next by the smallest step available, and that is the thing to practise.

Time Remembered on record

Evans first recorded it in 1962, at a quintet session with Zoot Sims that stayed unissued until 1982 as Loose Blues. The first version released in his lifetime was on Bill Evans Trio with Symphony Orchestra (1966), and it became one of his most played originals.

Analyze this progression

Open these chords in the analyzer and change them. Move one chord, substitute a dominant, take the ii away — the reading updates and tells you what you just did.

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Time Remembered — Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

The books behind this page

Jazz Harmony

The Jazz Guitar Shortcut

Harmonic Narrative

The Jazz Roadmap Lite

Play Time Remembered in JamShed

Harmonic analysis

Why this example matters

How the rest of Time Remembered goes

Time Remembered on record

Analyze this progression

Related

Roman numeral analysis

Now’s the Time

Billie’s Bounce

Straight, No Chaser

Jazz chord progressions