All of Me Jazz Standard Analysis

A chord-scale dissection of the 1931 Simmons & Marks standard "All of Me" from jazzguitar.be — a practical worked example of applying harmonic theory to a real tune, mapping every chord to its recommended scale and showing how secondary dominants, circle-of-fifths movement, and modal interchange operate in context.

Key Content

The article walks through the 32-bar ABAC form bar by bar, assigning a scale to each chord. The harmonic engine is secondary dominants and circle of fifths movement — E7→A7→Dm7→G7→Cmaj7 is the backbone. Most chords last two bars, making this a beginner-friendly tune despite the chromatic dominants. The analysis is practical rather than academic: this is a player's guide, not a theorist's.

The scale prescriptions: - Cmaj7 → C major (or major bebop: add b6) - E7 (V/vi) → A harmonic minor (= E Phrygian dominant / E Mixolydian b9 b13) - A7 (V/ii) → D harmonic minor (= A Phrygian dominant) - D7 (V/V) → D Mixolydian - Fm7 (iv borrowed from C minor) → F melodic minor - All diatonic chords of C → C major

Laukens distinguishes two resolutions for E7: resolving to Am7 (secondary dominant, V/vi) vs. resolving to A7 (extended dominant, V/VI — a dominant resolving to another dominant rather than a diatonic target). This distinction is easy to gloss over but matters for phrasing: the player's line should signal where the chain is heading.

A separate section introduces bebop scales — major, dominant, and minor variants that add a passing chromatic tone to align chord tones with downbeats. The transcribed solo demonstrates arpeggios and bebop scales in practice, with a Band-in-a-Box backing track.

Cross-Reference Lists

Laukens helpfully lists other standards that use the same harmonic devices:

I → V/VI movement (E7→A7 pattern): Someday My Prince Will Come, After You've Gone, Come Rain or Come Shine, I'll Be Seeing You, Basin Street Blues, I Should Care, On a Slow Boat to China.

V/V → V → I (D7→G7→C pattern): Days of Wine and Roses, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, Just Friends.

iv minor (Fm7 modal interchange): Fly Me to the Moon, How Deep is the Ocean, How High the Moon.

These lists are the article's hidden value — they turn a single-tune analysis into a mini-curriculum. Learn the harmonic device once, then recognize it across the repertoire.

Recommended Listening

Laukens provides a curated listening list spanning 1940-2013: Django Reinhardt, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, George Benson, and three generations of gypsy jazz guitarists (Biréli Lagrène, Stochelo Rosenberg, Romane). "All of Me" is especially popular with gypsy jazz players, which explains the listening emphasis — this is Django's lineage.

Key Quotes

The melody is built from clear, singable phrases and mostly moves stepwise, which makes it easy to memorize and great for developing your feel and phrasing.

This is the article's quiet thesis: "All of Me" endures not because of harmonic complexity but because the melody is memorable. The analysis that follows is unpacking what supports a great melody, not showing off theoretical machinery.

When E7 resolves to A7, it is called an extended dominant and is notated as V/VI. An extended (secondary) dominant is a dominant chord that resolves to another dominant chord.

The cascading-dominant insight, clearly stated. The song is a chain of dominants pulling toward resolution, not a collection of unrelated chords. Useful for a player who needs to think in lines not labels.

The Fm7 chord is the iv minor in the key of C major and is an example of modal interchange. This chord is borrowed from the parallel minor key (C minor).

With the chromatic voice leading explicitly spelled out: A (3rd of Fmaj7) → Ab (b3 of Fm7) → G (5th of Cmaj7). A single bar of modal color, but it's the most harmonically sophisticated moment in the tune.

Key Themes

• #concept — Chord-scale theory as applied practice: matching scales to chords is the working player's version of theory, distinct from academic Roman numeral analysis
• #pattern — Secondary dominant chains: E7→A7→Dm7→G7→Cmaj7 as the song's structural spine
• #tool — Bebop scales: a rhythmic hack (adding a chromatic passing tone) masquerading as a harmonic one — it's really about landing chord tones on downbeats
• #concept — Modal interchange: the Fm7 in bar 26 is borrowed from C minor, a single moment of modal color in an otherwise functional-harmony tune
• #pattern — Extended vs. secondary dominants: the distinction between a dominant resolving to a diatonic chord vs. resolving to another dominant

Critical Analysis

The article is solid journeyman pedagogy — not groundbreaking, but useful precisely because it's specific. Most online jazz tutorials stay at the "here's what a secondary dominant is" level; this one says "here's exactly which scale to play over E7 in bar 3 of All of Me." That specificity is what makes it worth ingesting.

The harmonic minor choices for the secondary dominants (A harmonic minor over E7, D harmonic minor over A7) are the standard bebop prescription but not the only option. The article doesn't discuss why harmonic minor rather than, say, the altered scale or whole-tone — it presents one correct answer rather than exploring the territory. This is a limitation: a player who only knows the harmonic minor approach will sound correct but one-dimensional over dominant chains. The Barry Harris approach (G7 over E7, tritone subs) opens more interesting doors.

The bebop scale section is a #tool worth highlighting — it's really a rhythmic device (adding a passing tone so chord tones land on strong beats) but it's taught as a scale. This conflation is standard in jazz pedagogy and mostly harmless, but it obscures the real mechanism: the scale isn't different, the articulation of time is.

Laukens' real teaching instinct shows in the cross-reference lists. Naming six other tunes that use I→V/VI isn't showing off — it's giving the student a path from "I can play this over All of Me" to "I recognize this move everywhere." The listening list does the same thing: Django → Billie → Ella → Benson → Lagrène is a miniature history of the tune across styles and decades. These lists are the most valuable pedagogical content in the article.

For this wiki: This is the second music page, alongside ytx How to Write Interesting Chord Progressions. The relationship is complementary: Keithson's video gives you the seven strands of harmonic options; this article shows strands 1-3 (diatonic, secondary dominants, modal interchange) applied to a specific tune. Together they form a miniature curriculum — theory framework + worked example. If more music pages accumulate, a Music Theory synthesis page would be justified.

Sources: All Of Me — Jazz Guitar Lesson: Melody, Analysis, and Solo Last updated: 2026-05-18