Substitutions for Emily

reed:

Emily is a wonderful tune by Johnny Mandel with beautiful lyrics by
Johnny Mercer. Who could ask for anything more?

The original sheet music is in C. There is an excellent book by Johnny
Mandel where he has arrangements of many of his most popular tunes (not
sheet music arrangements but with actually some hip chords). I can't
find my book but it's around my place somewhere. Anyway, I remember that
he has Emily in D.

In any case, C is a pretty miserable key to play it in for solo piano.

What I do is play the head in Eb, modulate to E and take my solo and
then modulate to F for the out head. It's very effective.

I'm going to give the analysis in Eb.

The original sheet music changes for the first 8 bars are essentially:

Ebmaj7      | Cmi7      | Fmi7    | Bb7  |
Ebmaj7 Cmi7 | Bbmi7 Eb7 | Abmaj7  | Abm6 |

You can play the first four essentially as written. Another possibility
is something that I think Bill Evans used to do on this tune. Namely to
use a C7 in place of the Cmi7 and approach that chord from a V7. Thus.

Ebmaj7 G7   | C7sus C7  | Fmi7    | Bb7sus Bb7 |
Ebmaj7 Cmi7 | Bbmi7 Eb7 | Abmaj7  | Abm6       |

In the second four, I see no reason to go back to the I. Instead I just
pivot right there.

Ebmaj7 G7   | C7sus C7  | Fmi7    | Bb7sus Bb7 |
Bbm7        | Eb7       | Abmaj7  | Abmi6      |
Cmaj7 ...

The Abm6 seems to be a poor choice to me. As a minor plagal cadence it
would go back to Eb.

Instead we use the Abmi6/Db == Db9. Now we have essentially a dual
function chord which moves nicely into the C major 7. In other words, it
is natural to have Abmaj7 go to Db9 there as it is basically a minor
plagal cadence back into Eb. However, then we are surprise because Db9
is also the tritone sub for G7, so it is a pivot chord, i.e a chord
occuring in two tonalities which allows us to modulate.

Ebmaj7 G7   | C7sus C7  | Fmi7    | Bb7sus Bb7 |
Bbm7        | Eb7       | Abmaj7  | Db7        |
Cmaj7 ..

The next eight bars in the sheet music are essentially:

Cmaj7 |  Ami7   | Dmi7  |  G7    |
Cmi7  | F7      | Fmi7  | Bb7    |

I pretty much leave this section alone except for possibly putting an E7
in from of the Ami7.

The next eight are basically:

Ebmaj7      | Cmi7 | Fmi7    | Bb7     |
Ebmaj7  E7  | Eb7  | Abmaj7  | Dmi7 G7 |
Cmi7

I really just make a few of the same improvements I made for the first
eight:

Ebmaj7      | Cmi7 | Fmi7    | Bb7sus Bb7     |
Bbmi7       | Eb7  | Abmaj7  | Dmi7 G7        |
Cmi7

The next eight in the sheet music are basically:

Cmi7        | D7   | Gmi7    | C7      |
Fmi7        | Bb7  | Gmi7    | C7      |
Fmi7 ...

I pretty much leave these alone two, except for a few sus chords.

Cmi7        | D7          | Gmi7    | C7sus C7  |
Fmi7        | Bb7sus Bb7  | Gmi7    | C7sus C7  |
Fmi7 ...

The last eight in the sheet music are:

Fmi7        | Abmi | Gmi7    | C7      |
Fmi7        | Bb7  | Ebmaj7  |         |

  
Here I make several improvements. The Abmi7 is a minor plagal cadence
and I just add the V in .

Fmi7        | Abmi7 Db7 | Gmi7    | C7      |
Fmi7        | Bb7       | Ebmaj7  |         |

Rather than starting with the Fmi7, I use Ami7b5 since it breaks up the
repetitiveness in this section and also provides a nice #ivmi7b5
walkdown.

Ami7b5      | Abmi7 Db7  | Gmi7    | C7      |
Fmi7        | Bb7sus Bb7 | Ebmaj7  |         |

So in total we have:

Ebmaj7 G7   | C7sus C7    | Fmi7       | Bb7sus Bb7  |
Bbm7        | Eb7         | Abmaj7     | Db7         |
Cmaj7  (E7) |  Ami7       | Dmi7       |  G7         |
Cmi7        | F7          | Fmi7       | Bb7         |
Ebmaj7      | Cmi7        | Fmi7       | Bb7sus Bb7  |
Bbmi7       | Eb7         | Abmaj7     | Dmi7 G7     |
Cmi7        | D7          | Gmi7       | C7sus C7    |
Fmi7        | Bb7sus Bb7  | Gmi7       | C7sus C7    |
Ami7b5      | Abmi7 Db7   | Gmi7       | C7          |
Fmi7        | Bb7sus Bb7  | Ebmaj7     |             |

When I modulate to E I just put a F#mi7 B7 in the last bar and off I go.

[end]