Jazz harmony
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Jazz harmony is the harmonic idiom or harmonies used in jazz. Similarities between jazz harmony and traditional or common practice harmony or tonality include, notational techniques, (e.g. the musical staff, clefs, accidentals etc.) many chord progressions, and many musical scales. In jazz harmony, however, additional tensions are added to harmonic progressions and jazz scales are also used.
In jazz, chord construction is similar to traditional harmony but includes the wider use of 7th chords as well as chords containing compound intervals. Also, the principles of voice leading, the practice of smoothly moving individual notes of one chord to another, are considerably different from traditional harmony.
The piano and guitar are the two instruments which typically provide harmony for a jazz group. Players of these instruments deal with harmony in a real-time, flowing improvisational context as a matter of course. It is one of the biggest challenges in jazz.
In a big-band context, the harmony is the basis for the writing for the horns, along with melodic counterpoint, etc. The improvising soloist is expected to have a complete knowledge of the basics of harmony, as well as their own unique approach to chords, and their relationship to scales. A style of one's own is made from these building blocks, along with a rhythmic concept.
Jazz composers use harmony as a basic stylistic element as well. Open, modal harmony is characteristic of the music of McCoy Tyner, whereas rapidly shifting key centers is a hallmark of the middle period of John Coltrane's writing. Note that the saxophonist wrote all the chords, and the piano player wrote vamps. Horace Silver, Clare Fischer, Dave Brubeck, and Bill Evans are pianists whose compositions are more typical of the chord-rich style associated with pianist-composers. Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Wayne Shorter, Benny Golson, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charles Mingus, are non-pianists who also have a strong sense of the role of harmony in compositional structure and mood. These composers have a musicianship grounded in chords at the piano, even if they are not performing keyboardists.
The harmonic and Roman numeral analyses of chord progressions are also different. Also included in jazz harmony are diatonic and non-diationic reharmonizations, the addition of the V7(sus4) chord as a dominant and non-dominant functioning chord, major/minor interchange, blues harmony, secondary dominants, extended dominants, deceptive resolution, related II-V7 chords, direct modulations, pivot chord modulations, and dominant chord modulations.
