Rhythm Changes: The Gershwin Chords Jazz Players Keep Borrowing

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In 1930 George and Ira Gershwin put “I Got Rhythm” in a Broadway show called Girl Crazy. Ethel Merman sang it, held a high C for 16 bars, and stopped the show. It made her a star overnight. The same show gave us “Embraceable You” and “But Not for Me.”

The song did fine. The chords did better.

The tunes jazz players built on I Got Rhythm

Jazz musicians loved those changes so much they kept the chords, threw away the melody, and wrote new tunes on top.

Lester Young did it with “Lester Leaps In.” Duke Ellington did it with “Cotton Tail.” Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie did it with “Anthropology,” and Bird did it again with “Moose the Mooche.” Sonny Rollins did it with “Oleo.” Thelonious Monk did it with “Rhythm-a-Ning.” And that’s a short list. There are countless more. The earliest one anybody’s found is Sidney Bechet’s “Shag,” recorded in 1932, two years after the show opened.

Musicians just call it rhythm changes. Along with the blues, it’s one of the most common sets of chords jazz players improvise on.

There were practical reasons for all that borrowing. Write a new melody over the changes and the melody is yours, so you’re not paying royalties on Gershwin’s song. And at a jam session, a new tune on chords everybody already knew was easy to play.

Here’s the shape. It’s 32 bars, AABA, usually in B-flat. The A sections keep cycling a 1-6-2-5, a new chord every couple of beats: B-flat, G minor (or G7), C minor, F7. Then the bridge slows way down: four dominant 7 chords, two bars each, D7, G7, C7, F7. Players call it the Sears Roebuck bridge. Then the last A brings you home.

Which is good news if you solo.

The three things almost every tune is built from

Almost every tune you’ll get called on is built out of three things: 2-5-1s, the blues and rhythm changes. Learn to solo through those three and a huge chunk of the book opens up, including tunes you’ve never seen, because you’ve already played the chords under a different melody.

Most players learn tune by tune. It’s slow, and it doesn’t stack. The players who get good fast learn the three shapes underneath and let the tunes take care of themselves.

Look at the bridge again. Each of those dominant chords moves to the next one down a fifth, the same 5-to-1 move that resolves every 2-5-1. If 2-5-1s are still shaky under your fingers, start with three ways to walk a ii-V-I and come back.

Where to start with rhythm changes

Learn rhythm changes once, in B-flat, the way you’d learn a tune. Then the next time somebody calls “Oleo” or “Rhythm-a-Ning” or “Anthropology,” it isn’t a new tune. It’s Gershwin’s chords with a different melody on top, and you’ve already been there.