ABSTRACT
This chapter explores basic elements of jazz harmony, with a focus on the unique features that distinguish it from other tonal styles. Jazz began developing out of blues and ragtime in the early twentieth century. Jazz exhibits many of the same harmonic and functional trends present in common-practice tonality, and may be viewed as an extension of the tonal system developing in parallel with the post-tonal practices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Jazz chords, which are for the most part tertian, are indicated by chord symbols. Diatonic seventh chords in jazz serve the same function as diatonic triads and seventh chords in common-practice works. As jazz is highly chromatic and often involves rapidly shifting tonal centers, the quality of a seventh chord can be more helpful in determining its function than its scale-degree contents. Most chords heard in jazz are “taller” than the triad.
