Jazz Progression... Tim O'Brien's "Gonna Try To Make Her Stay"

[terzinator]

Tim does this tune on his Chicken Egg album... nice little jazzy swing tune... I think in D (listening here at the office, and don't have my mando, but I do have my iphone and the initial mandolin run down goes chromatically from D to A, and then an F#-E-D turnaround...)

But not being a jazz guy, I need help figuring out the chord progression. I think it's probably a fairly common/standard progression, though. I mean, it sounds "familiar" or "right" or whatever...

Any help figuring it out?

here's the link to a snippet in iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/go...41?i=379421087

and here are the lyrics
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/o...tay-30581.html

[terzinator]

ok, I mucked around with this tonight...

Here's what I've figured out, but it might be wrong... I'm just playing the G, D and A strings.

(And this is just the first batch of chords; not the whole thing... Come on, you jazz guys, show me up! For the chords, I just plugged those notes into the guitar toolkit app on my iPhone, and this is what they said they were. Well, a couple of 'em I didn't need to look up, so there.)

745X (D)
644X (F#5)
543X (F# dim)
452X (G)
321X (E dim)
240X (F# dim - no b5)

that's all I got. Is it anything?

[Jordan Ramsey]

Hey Chris,

From the snippet available, here's a bare bones sketch of what I'm hearing...

A part:

D D A A
D7 D7 G G
Gm Gm D B
E E A A*

*Second and fourth A's = E A D D

B Part:

G G G G
D D D D
G G G G
D D A A

Form is AABA.

Hope that helps.

[terzinator]

thanks Jordan!

So my jazzy chords are way off the mark? (Not sure if you tried to play my chords, but they sure as heck sound like what I'm hearing in the song!)

So, for your interpretation, are the descending runs just done on the mando, but the other instruments are just running through the major chords? (aside from the D7 and Gm?)

Could be that I was going off the start of the tune, so maybe the snippet has a more basic progression!

[Jordan Ramsey]

Hi Chris,

Your chord shapes are pretty much there, but the chord names your app has assigned them are wrong in this context... your 644x "F#5" should be labeled an A6, the 543x "F#dim" should be a D7, 321x "E dim" would be a Gm6, etc... Your labels are all valid by themselves, but they are incorrect in the context of this song.

My chart is a BARE BONES transcription of what's happening harmonically, I did it without mando in hand and did not pay attention to the shapes that Tim used or what the individual players were doing. If you want that level of assistance, you'll have to mail me a check.

Here are the shapes I would use to play the A part:

D: 745x
A7: 654x
D7: 545x
G7: 435x
Gm7: 335x
D: 245x
B7: 879x
E7: 767x
A7: 657x

Take care,

[terzinator]

Your chord shapes are pretty much there, but the chord names your app has assigned them are wrong in this context... your 644x "F#5" should be labeled an A6, the 543x "F#dim" should be a D7, 321x "E dim" would be a Gm6, etc... Your labels are all valid by themselves, but they are incorrect in the context of this song.

This is where I'm always amazed by people who know what they are talking about. Thank you!

If you want that level of assistance, you'll have to mail me a check.

I like your way of thinking.

Thanks for the head start, Jordan!