In fact, many of the composers who wrote jazz repertoire had classical composition training. Here's the original version of Stella by Starlight (by Victor Young) - until we get into the dance band section around 1:40 with the harmonica and rhythm guitar, it sounds like Rachmaninoff to me!
ii-V-I's are baby stuff to trained composers: lots of attention in classical harmony classes is paid to the bassline - the 'second melody' as Arnold Schoenberg had it. As such there are many beautiful progressions in the jazz repertoire which resist the ii-V-I analysis. In fact, ii-V-I's and backcycling harmony lead to boring basslines. Here's a standard modern jazz version of Rhythm Changes. The bass leaps around without much structure:
Bb Gm | Cm F7 | Dm A7 | Cm G7 | Fm Bb7 | Eb G7 | Cm F7 |
A traditional bass-line oriented version might do this:
Bb Bo7 | Cm7 C#o7 | Dm7 D7 | Eb Ebm | Dm G7 | Cm F7 |
Notice how the bassline has a pleasing balance between movement in chromatic steps and larger intervals towards the end.
In fact, arpeggios of these changes form the basis of the bebop melody the Serpents Tooth as well as commonly played changes to quite a few tunes - Mean to Me, Ain't Misbehaving, Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered and many more.
I'm not going to talk about what to play over these progression - I'll just identify a few progressions of this type. Hopefully you'll start to see that there are recognisable patterns that can be factored into your practice, just like ii-V-I's.
Swing/blues progressions
Swing, trad jazz and blues have a number of basic progressions which are based on very strong, cliche basslines. Here are a couple of classic ones used as endings in blues music, and turnaround progressions in jazz:Bb Bb7/D (or D7) | Eb Eo7 | Bb/F
Bb Bb/Ab | Eb/G Ebm/Gb | Bb/F
First thing to notice is that these chords are inverted - hence the busy looking notation of slash chords.They may be more familiar in root position:
Bb Bb7 | Eb Eo7 | Bb
Bb Bb7 | Eb Ebm | Bb
The progressions both do the same job - that is go to IV from I and get back again. Both basslines start on Bb and end up on F: in fact it's common in jazz to hear one progression played against the other.
These types of progression are commonly used as riffs in swing music. Christopher Columbus is an example of a Rhythm Changes tune where a blues turnaround is used instead of a ii-VI-ii-V type progression.
In the simplest analysis the progression is this:
Bb7 | Eb7 | Bb
Which is how Charlie Parker and Lester Young often used to play them.
Another progression which shares a very similar function (here going from I to ii, a close relative of IV, and back again)
Bb Bo7 | Cm Ebo7 |
And a sort of reversed version is also very common:
Bb/D Dbo7 | Cm7 F7 |
It might surprise you to notice that this progression features heavily in Tom Jobim's music. I used to find this progression from Corcovado very puzzling, until I realised it's just an old school swing turnaround in F stretched out to 4 bars:
Am | Abo7 | Gm | C7 etc
Cole Porter
Cole Porter has some great examples. Here's one of my favourites form Just One of Those Things. I've moved the key to Bb from the original, F.Bb7/F | Em7b5 | Ebm | Dm7 | Db7 | Cm F7
There's quite a few chromatic chords here - try to appreciate the tight chromatic voice leading as you play through the example.
Django Reinhardt
Django loved progressions of this type. Djangology is largely similar to the Cole Porter example. I'll give it in Bb, although the song is normally played in G:C7/E (or Em7b5) | Ebm | Dm7 | Dbo7 | Cm7 | F7 | Bb
Notice the difference between Dbo7 and Db7 in this and the Cole Porter example. In general the rule is when deciding to put a chord on the bass note ensure that the melody note is included in the chord.
A personal favourite is the progression from his gorgeous ballad Tears. This is sometimes given incorrectly. These are the right changes for bar 9 on:
Dbo7 | Fm/C | Bo7 | Cm/Bb | Ao7 | Ab7 G7 etc
Tom Jobim
Jobim wrote many beautiful chord progressions. Inutil Paisagem is rare jazz example of chromatic contrary motion between melody and bass:C B13 Bbmaj7
(G-Ab-A in the melody against C-B-Bb in the bass)
The song Aguas De Marco (transposed here to Bb) is a lovely embellishment of a blues turnaround Bb | Bb7 | Eb | Ebm. Jobim uses the hypnotic continually descending bassline to help paint the landscape and mood of the song.
First progression
Bb | Bbmaj7/Ab | Emaj7/G | Emmaj7/Gb | Bb6/9/F | E7#11 | Ebmaj7 | Ab7sus4
Notice more complex chord qualities compared to the earlier examples - this generally creates richer voice leadning, though the basic principle remains the same. Jobim uses a tritone substitute of Bb7, E7#11 to keep the bass descending.
Second progression
Bbmaj7 | Bb9sus4 Bb9 | C/E | Ebm9 |
The C/E chord is a close relation of the Em7b5 used by Cole Porter and Django.
Stella by Starlight
A classic example of how ii-V-I thinking has come to dominate the teaching jazz harmony to the point of actually mucking up the tunes comes from the Real Book version of the changes to this song. This site covers the harmonic butchery in depth.Extended minor ii-V-I
Very common progression which includes both ii-V's and basslines:Dm Dm/C | Bm7b5 E7 | Am
Basically dresses up this progression (bear in mind that you can think of the Bm7b5 as Dm/B or a third inversion minor 6th chord.)
Bm7b5 | E7 | Am
This crops up in many settings:
Gm Gm/F | Em7b5 A7 | Dm G7 | Gm | C7 |
(Days of Wine and Roses)
Which is really just (Gm | A7 | Dm G7 | C7)
Dm Dm/C | Bm7b5 E7 | Am Am/G | F#m7b5 B7 | Em7 A7 | Dm7 G7 | C
(Green Dolphin Street)
This progression is basically Bm7b5 | E7 | Am | F#o7 | C A7 | Dm7 G7 - a twist on the swing turnaround above.
And so on...
Summary/Rant
None of this info will be any news to those who play a lot of standards gigs. The repertoire I have chosen is the most commonly played, and the changes I've given are pretty much the Real Book ones. All of them might pose a challenge to an improviser if they don't spend some time running these progressions.In general, there seems a lack of info about any progressions aside from ii-V-I's. This is perplexing, as just studying ii-V-I's and ii-V won't prepare you for playing standards. In fact, the tendency to introduce them retroactively into standards actually results in some pretty ugly harmony! The real book and iRealB app is full of this sort of thing - Stella is merely the most egregious and best known example. Take an old swing tune - Coquette. This is how I understand the A section of Coquette (in fiddle key, D):
D | % | A7 | % |
A7 | % | D | A7 |
With any extra ii-V's, passing chords or turnarounds added to taste.
The (admittedly public sourced) iRealB forum gives these changes:
| D6/9 | % | Em7 | A13b9 |
| Em7 | A13b9 | F#-7 B13b9 | Em7 B13b9 |
Why??? Why????? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy???????
The A13b9 chord is especially odd. Perhaps the author meant A13/Bb, a common gypsy jazz style substitute for A7 - not that most gypsy jazz players would think of referring to it that way. However, call this song on a gig with musicians who don't know it, and that's the chart they will most likely be playing from these days. It's daft.
While there's nothing more boring than playing with a changes nazi (obsession with the 'right changes' seems to me to miss the point of what jazz is and how it functions), obscuring the underlying simplicity of song's harmony and worse, writing clunky, pedestrian and cluttered versions of straightforward progressions does nothing to help us understand the repertoire.
Good standards players learn lots of variations of a songs harmony for this very reason, and will make aesthetic choices and decisions based on their knowledge and taste.
In any case, I hope I've helpfully identified some areas that might trip up aspiring jazz players (as they did me).
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