Chord Progression of the Week #1

The Kipper

I should thank clarinettist extraordinaire Duncan Hemstock for introducing me to this name for this progression – although he blames guitarist/banjoist Simon Picton. It is possible he made it up. I'll have to ask him.

I used to call it a Cole Porter turnaround but as no one knew what I was on about, and ‘the Kipper’ is satisfyingly stupid name so we’ll go with that. 

Other names are welcome in the comments box below. Keep it clean, please.

The progression comes in two main flavours, in C, both of them shmokey:

F#m7b5 | Fm6 | C/E (or Em7) | Ebo7 | Dm7 | G7 | C

F#m7b5 | Fm6 | C/E (or Em7) | A7 | Dm7 | G7 | C

The second one is a little more familiar, so I’ll pass it over…. We’ll focus on the first progression.

The first chord, can be understood also as D7/F#, in which case we have this:

D7/F# | Fm6 | C/E | Ebo7 | Dm7 | G7 | C

Function:

The function of the Kipper is the same as any long turnaround progression: to bring us back to the tonic (I) chord with lots of classy and interesting chromatic voice leading in between. We could just write C for 8 bars, but that's not how jazz is. (Well, it's not how Cole Porter is.)

The only unusual thing about this progression, in fact, is the first chord, F#m7b5. Many progressions of this type start on Dm7 or F, so to have this as our first chord makes the whole thing a little more exotic.

Melody permitting, this is a classy and somewhat old fashioned way to dress up a F-Fm-C-A7-Dm-G7 progression (Christophe) or even a Rhythm Changes/turnaround type of vibe. Here, we just start with a bar of C and let the Kipper err…. unfold…

Also, F#m7b5 is a common substitute for C major where the melody is C or E, especially on the last A of a standard AABA tune, so this progression could function here too, if the melody fits…

It is the white tie and tails of chord progressions and is essentially a pre-bebop - although Jobim also used it, as he did many pre-war style progressions.

Popular Appearances

• Night and Day
• Georgia on my Mind
• It Was Just One of Those Things
• Djangology
• Aguas de Marco
• A Smooth One (this also loops the first few chords a few times.)

Challenges

As with any non ii-V based progression, this set of chords can seem a bit difficult to get to grips with for players coming out of modern jazz education. There’s not really a ‘ii-V’ sub that fits comfortably either.

We can’t really ignore it though, as it pops up quite a few tunes.

Soloing suggestions

Well we could play arpeggios of course. So what do we do? Well the Dm7 G7 I is a II-V-I, so no problems there. I would narrow the challenges in this progression to two main things that could be helpfully practiced on their own.

• F#m7b5 Fm6 C
• Em7 Ebo7 Dm7

Both are actually fairly common progressions, but I haven't seen the mentioned to much in jazz textbooks.

F#m7b5 --> Fm6 --> C

In this case, I’d suggest thinking of the first chord as a Am6, and the third as a C major and go from there:

Am6 | Fm6 | C | Ebo7 | Dm7 | G7 |

Em7 --> Ebo7 --> Dm7

This progression is very common in older forms of jazz and is closely related to quite a few other things, so is a great thing to get to grips with.

I tend to think of the Em7 as a Cmaj9 chord without the root (C). That said, you don’t have to think of it that way, but it does produce the most diatonic and inside approach, which is important to me. If you consider the first chord as Em7 it’s likely you will view it as a Dorian chord, which will pull you outside of the prevailing key. Try it.

The Ebo7 can be thought of as an extension of the D7b9 chord – as Em7 is Cmaj9 without the C, Ebo7 is D7b9 without the D. Got it? :-)

Em7 --> Ebo7 --> Dm7

Is in fact

C --> D7b9 --> G7

With a funny bassline.

Dominants

An alternative approach for the first two bars is to use the related dominants of the minor chords. This may in fact be the simplest approach. We use the ii-V relationship to come up with this:

D7 | Bb7 | C

The whole progression is then:

D7 | Bb7 | C | D7(b9) | G7 | C

In the simplest understanding we can reduce the chords to this, as Fm6 is a common swing and bebop substitute for G7:

D7 | G7b9 | C | D7b9 | G7 | % | C

From this simplification we can see that the progression is really a D7 G7 C repeated twice. The first few bars of the Kipper, expressed as arpeggios sound magical over a II7 V7 I progression, such as found in Exactly Like You, Take the A Train and so on. I heard Django using this substitute first, but the Fm6 over G7 thing is very common in all harmonic era (1910s-1960s) jazz.

Scales

In scalar terms, the first two chords can be well handled using the melodic minor. We encounter a little bump with the Ebo7 – another chromatic chord.

Many textbooks advise the use of the half – whole or diminished scale here, but I would suggest also considering the use of the E harmonic minor for very smooth approach.

ii-V’s

More beboppy approaches might include swapping that biiio7 for a little sidestep ii-V:

Am6 | Fm6 | Em7 A7 | Ebm7 Ab7 | Dm7 | G7 | C

We could even ‘ii-V’ the first two, resulting in some sustained chromatic modulations. With a little artistic licence we can turn the first chord from F#m7b5 into F#m7 (works best in a guitar or piano trio.)

F#m7 B7 | Fm7 Bb7 | Em7 A7 | Ebm7 Ab7 | Dm7 | G7 | C

Line cliches

Lastly, we can interpret the chord progression from the point of view of its voice leading. This can allows us to improvise more melodically but keep the sound of the progression:

The bassline is the most obvious chromatic line.

F# F E Eb D (Db) C

However, the middle voice has this.

A Ab G Gb F F E

Soloists in a swing band setting, where the bass is likely to be playing the chromatic line, might be best off basing their soloing around the second line, which be have a more interesting sound than octave doubling of the bass. Notice that the two lines together move in thirds.

These aren’t guide tone lines in the sense of using 3rds and 7ths. In fact guide tone lines only really work for progression that go around the circle of fourths – such as ii-V-I’s. But you usually find something similar if you write out the chords or work on them at the piano.

Conclusion

Once mastered, the Kipper can be used as an interesting way of getting around rhythm changes and other turnaround progressions. It is closely related to the Rhythm A, Christopher Columbus A the Mean to Me/Ain’t Misbehaving A and the Bewitched A, all of which can be exchanged for each other. It is not a million miles away for the Art Tatum/Monk subsitutes for Rhythm Changes:

F#7 B7 | E7 A7 | D7 G7 | C

Or

F#m7b5 B7 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7b5 G7 | C