The Most Important Progression No One Talks About (feat. Cecil Alexander)

There are plenty of chord progressions you’ll see in jazz, but one that doesn’t get talked about quite enough is the iii-vi-ii-V-I progression. 

Just to quickly define this progression, it’s a move around the circle of fourths. Where a ii-V-I is Dm to G to C, this takes it a step further. A iii-vi-ii-V-I is four steps around the circle. These chords are still connected to the tonic chord, but we're just starting a couple steps away. 

Another way to see it is as 2 ii-V-I progressions a whole step apart—E to A to D then D to G to C.

This progression appears in almost every jazz standard you'll play, which makes it crucial to practice this in as many contexts as possible. Developing a real command of this progression improves your harmonic fluency and phrasing across a wide variety of tunes. The truth is, most inexperienced jazz improvisers don't really shed this progression enough.

Once you start practicing this progression intentionally, your lines become longer, smoother and more musical. To help internalize this sound, we put together our resource 100 iii-vi-ii-V-I Phrases. In this resource, you'll find 15 diatonic scale tone phrases, 20 approach tone and enclosure phrases, 20 tritone substitution lines, 20 pentatonic and large interval lines, 15 alteration lines, and 10 lines that combine all of those concepts. Every phrase is written to move cleanly through the entire progression. 

If you’re interested in hearing Cecil play through any of what we talk about today, make sure to check out our accompanying YouTube video The Most Important Progression No One Talks About.

Now let’s get playing!

Contents

Approach tones

Tritone Substitutions

Alterations

Approach tones

The first concept that will help you have a better command of iii-vi-ii-V-I progressions is approach tones.

So that was a line from the resource with approach tones over a iii-vi-ii-V-I chord progression.

So we start in C, on Em7, and we go down to A natural and we have our first approach tone, going from A to G.

That's going to be to highlight the b7 of A7. Then we have a longer enclosure that's eventually going to get us to F on Dm7. But it's kind of made up of a couple different enclosures and approach notes. 

We’re starting on G, and then we go outside of the scale sound with D#. This is going to be a half step below our target of E natural, then a whole step above with G, and then back to a half step below. And then finally F our target. Backing up a little bit more, starting on that G, and after that F, we have G#, which is going to be an approach note into A natural. And this is also part of what's called a pivot arpeggio on G7.

So we have this Fmaj7 arpeggio inverted, and we decorate it a little bit further with this approach note.

Then we grab Eb, which is going to be the b13 in relation to our G7. Then we have a delayed resolution moving into the Cmaj7.

Then just more diatonic melodic ideas within Cmaj7.

To practice this concept and feel better about it technically, Cecil will take a specific approach note or a specific enclosure type and then just move it through the scale. 

So if we take C major, we might take this enclosure.

Then we practice that to every scale tone. 

Taking a step further, we might even connect it to the scale. So we can do the approach tone into the root, and then go down the scale.

If we wanted to take that another step further, we could connect it to the bebop scale or other scale types. Then we can go a little bit further and do that with other approach notes, maybe even diatonic enclosures,

Then move that through the scale and apply the same exercise to that as well. 

Tritone substitutions

The second concept that we're going to take a look at over the iii-vi-ii-V-I is the use of tritone substitutions. 

Tritone subs create smoother chromatic voice leading across this progression. So to define further what a tritone substitution is, basically if we take a dominant chord—we'll take the first dominant chord in the iii-vi-ii-V-I, so the VI7 A7. If we take a look at the b7 and the 3 of that chord, we can invert the root A up a tritone, and those notes then become the 3 and b7 of a chord up a tritone, which is Eb7. 

So the tritone sub of A7 will be Eb7. And if we look at the second dominant chord in the progression,G7, our b7 and 3 (F and B natural) are then going to become the 3 and b7 of Db7. 

We can use that as an opportunity to then play vocabulary that's in that tritone key. So if we're playing on A7, we could play Eb7 vocabulary, and it's going to sound a little bit outside, and give you a little bit more tension. And then again, on G7 we can play Db7 vocabulary. So essentially, you're kind of creating the substitute progression of Em7 / Eb7 / Dm7 / Db7 / Cmaj7.

It's all chromatic down from E to C. 

And when we’re playing over iii-vi-ii-V-I, if we have only one measure of each chord—one measure of Em7, one measure of A7, one measure of D, one measure of G, We will just kind of like play those tritone subs as is. So every time we see that dominant chord, we’re going to play a tritone up. 

But if we have a faster iii-vi-ii-V-I, one with only two beats of each chord, we might just think about the tritone sub chord over both the pre-dominant and the dominant. So rather than thinking E, Eb, D, Db, we’re just playing the substitute progression of Eb7 to Db7. That's just because the chord progression moves by a little bit faster, and you have less time to get all that voice leading in. So you can cram in that dominant sound as a substitute progression moving the C major. 

Now let's take a look at the line from the resource.

We have two beats of Em7, two beats of A7, two beats of Dm7, two beats of G7, into two measures of Cmaj7. 

Here, we’re going to apply that substitute dominant idea. We’re not going to play any minor vocabulary here on Em or Dm7. We’ll just play a line that implies the sound of Eb7 to Db7 to Cmaj7. 

We’ll start with Eb7 over this A7. This is kind of starting on the 9 of our substitute dominant chord. Going up to the 4, back down to the 9, b7, and then the 5, and against the A7, that's going to create this sound of the b13, the major 7, right back down to the b13, 3, and then the b9.

So by adding in that substitute dominant, you're getting all this really hip tension against your original dominant chord. This also happens to be a Bbm7 arpeggio.

Then we have a diatonic enclosure into Db and then we’ll use this to pivot into our Db7. From there we move down Db7, so from the root down to the 6 within the scale, and then we have a chromatic approach from Bb chromatically down to Ab and then a chromatic enclosure, from Ab into G, and that's going to be the 5 of Cmaj7. 

Alterations

The third concept we're going to tackle for today are alterations to the iii-vi-ii-V-I progression. So in this resource, we play various alterations over the iii-vi-ii-V-I progression, including the use of m7b5 as a substitute for the m7 and altered dominants as a substitute for the regular dominant.

Even if these alterations aren't written, a lot of jazz improvisers will apply these sounds to a regular iii-vi-ii-V-I just to get some more extended sounds over the harmony. 

So again instead of Em7, maybe Em7b5. And instead of using a regular A7 with natural tensions like the 9 or the 13, we can use b9 and b13. And then again, the same for the two chords a whole step lower, so maybe Dm7b5 to G alt. 

There are a lot of different variations that you'll see on this as well, but this is just a really good starting point. Let's take a look and analyze one of the lines from the resource using these alterations.

Here we have kind of a combination of just playing over the dominant and also playing each chord as is. So on our Em7b5 to A7, we have those in one measure. We can try using the A7 dominant sound, right? So we’re going down the scale from the b7 to the 3. This is kind of like an A Phrygian dominant scale. 

We’re going down the scale from the b7 to the 3. There's a b9, 1, down to the b7. And that also happens to be part of an enclosure to Ab—so that A, G, Ab is going to become the b5 of that Dm7b5. And then we go up this arpeggio.

And this is giving us b5, b7, 9, and the 11 over that Dm7b5. This arpeggio, more specifically, is going to be an Abmaj7#5.

From here we move down to Eb, which is the b13 of that G7 and then we have B, which is the 3, Ab which is the b9 and then this F# is part of an enclosure into G, the 5 of Cmaj7.

And this also happens to be an Abm triad arpeggio over G7 and then again resolves to the 5 of that Cmaj7. 

So if you never really shed the iii-vi-ii-V-I progression, this is a really great way to get started. It's one of the fastest ways to expand your jazz vocabulary across a wide variety of standards. If you want to dive a little bit deeper into this structured way to practice this progression, feel free to check out our resource 100 iii-vi-ii-V-I Phrases, plus our accompanying YouTube video The Most Important Progression No One Talks About (feat. Cecil Alexander).

We’ll see you next time!