Cottontail Functionanalysis

[gilles wulf]

Hey everyone,
I have problems with the function and stage analysis of the piece Cottontail by Duke Ellington. I know all of the chords from the scale and the Bb-7, which should be the double dominant parallel. I hope you understand what I mean because I have translated all the technical terms. I hope someone can help me with the analysis.
Best regards from Hamburg
Gilles

 

[idssdi]

I took a quick look and from what I can tell there are a couple of ii-v-I progressions present in this. F-7|Bb-7|Eb7 is ii-v-I in Eb and C-7|F-7|Bb-7 is ii-v-I in Bb-7 in Bb minor (?). Try to look for more ii-V-I bits because that's generally what jazz chord progressions revolve around. I don't really have time to look into more detail now but maybe I can take a proper look later

 

[gilles wulf]

thank you so much. Would be grate if you can take a proper look. However you already helped me

 

[Chris Johnston]

I'm not sure what a Double Dominant Parallel is, as I've never heard the term before. But I've done a quick analysis:

/I vi / ii V / (Standard jazz progression 1, 6, 2, 5)

then / iii vi / ii V / (3, 6, 2, 5) - / I / IV #IV diminished - this could be a sub for Bb7 - which would be a V of V - so it's like it skips actually resolving to the V and goes to the / I V / in the next bar.

Then your first ending 1. / V of ii / ii V / 2nd ending / I /

Then it starts this big resolve back to the I by doing some Back Cycling through the Circle of Fifths / V of vi / repeat / V of ii / Repeat / V of V repeat x3 then finally / I vi / ii V / iii vi / ii V / I IV / I V / I - this is basically like a big elongated turnaround to my ear.

Hopefully this made sense and I didn't make too many mistakes for it being 1 in the morning!

 

[gilles wulf]

thanks a lot @Chris Johnston. Wasn't sure, but since we have a lot of similar results i am

 

[Chris Johnston]

thanks a lot @Chris Johnston. Wasn't sure, but since we have a lot of similar results i am

No worries man, glad we got similar results. The tune seems pretty straight forward