Night and Day (Patreon)

Cole Porter was one of the most prolific composers and song writers in jazz and theater music. He wrote many, many popular songs such as I love Paris, Begin the Beguine, All of You, Love for Sale, What Is This Thing Called Love?, I Get a Kick out of You, I've Got You Under My Skin, just to name a few.

"Night  and Day" is arguably one of his most popular pieces amongst musicians, as it has been performed and recorded so many times. I think that what makes it so appealing to musicians is the beginning II-V-I harmonic sequence that in this song allows for so many  unusual alterations of a dominant 7 chord.

I made this cover in the key of D major (the original key is Eb major) so that the interesting dominant 7 chord would be A7. This chord appears several times and each time I tried to show some of those interesting alterations I mention. So we can find chords such as A7b13, Ab9 11 and A#5#9 11. You will notice that chord Ab9 11 is the same as EØ, the only difference is in the bass note. Another way to look at this chord is as Gm9 with a different bass note.

The harmony after this beginning sequence is also very interesting and I hope that those of you who like to dive deep and explore songs will find an interesting playground for learning.