Beautiful Love: Jazz Harmonic Analysis

Beautiful Love was written by Victor Young, Wayne King, and Egbert Van Alstyne in 1931. The song uses a simple 16-bar form with a repeat and a second ending. It was originally in the key of D minor. This is an analysis of the harmony in Beautiful Love and an explanation of the concepts used in the analysis. The image above shows my full analysis, which I will explore in more detail below. You can refer to the conventions page to explore the analytic concepts used or get the PDF for free.

The piece begins with an ii-V-i, followed by a V of IV to lead into an ii-V-i of the relative major. We return to another ii-V-i in the original minor before going to iv, a tritone sub of the V of V, and then the V. This leads to the first ending of i to a tritone sub of V of V, then ii-V leading back to the top. The tune repeats one time before going to the second ending. The second ending starts with the i before descending by half steps from the major sixth degree. I’m thinking of this functionally as the tritone sub of V of VI, the tritone sub of V of V, and then V to i.

This can also be read on my website.