West Coast Blues Chord Progression & Harmonic Analysis

Chord progression

Analyzed excerpt

Form: 12-bar blues in 3/4 · Bars 1–4

Bbmaj7 | Ebm7 Ab7 | Dbmaj7 | Gbmaj7

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

Bb major

Tonal center

Bb

Confidence

Low

Chords analysed

5

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 Db 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
Bbmaj7	I	Tonic	Bbmaj7 is the tonic of Bb. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Ebm7	ii	Predominant	Ebm7 is the ii chord of Db: the classic predominant. It prepares the dominant and almost always moves to it.	High
Ab7	V7	Dominant	Ab7 is the dominant of Db. Its third and seventh form a tritone, and that tritone is what makes the tonic feel due.	High
Dbmaj7	I	Tonic	Dbmaj7 is the tonic of Db. It is where the progression is at rest.	High
Gbmaj7	IV	Predominant	Gbmaj7 is the IV chord of Db: subdominant. It moves away from the tonic without creating the pull of a dominant.	High

What the analyzer found in it

ModulationDb major

Bars 2-4 are heard in Db major: the harmony cadences there and stays long enough to become a key.

ii - V7 - IEbm7 - Ab7 - Dbmaj7

A complete ii-V-I in Db. 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

Numbered against Bb major, the excerpt is I – ii – V7 – IV. Inside those 5 chords there is a complete ii-V-I. Take the roots away and keep the third and seventh. In Ab7 that is C and Gb. Those two notes decide where the progression is going, and hearing them move is worth more than naming the chords. Autumn Leaves, All The Things You Are and Tune Up use the same device, which is the argument for learning it once properly rather than three times by accident.

How the rest of West Coast Blues goes

A blues in three, which is the first thing that distinguishes it, and a blues with substitutions dense enough that the underlying twelve bars are easy to lose. The tonic does not stay put; the harmony starts moving in the second bar and keeps introducing cadences to places the ordinary form never visits, before folding back in time for the turnaround. The waltz metre is not decoration — it changes where the substituted chords fall relative to the beat, and the tune does not survive being played in four.

West Coast Blues on record

Wes Montgomery recorded it in 1960 on The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, the album that established him. It has become the standard example of the jazz waltz blues and is often the first three-four tune a guitarist learns after the basic repertoire. Montgomery’s octave and block-chord choruses on the original are studied as much as the composition itself.

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.

Open in Jazz Harmony Analyzer →

West Coast Blues — 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 West Coast Blues goes

West Coast Blues on record

Analyze this progression

Related

ii-V-I

Autumn Leaves

All The Things You Are

Tune Up

Jazz chord progressions