What is this chord?

Cafe Society
1

The highlighted one.

When I first looked at it, I saw an A Major chord and thought WTF?? But then I looked again and realized that there was an Eb, not an E. D’oh!

So, next I saw the tritone between Eb and A, and thought of a tritone sub. This would be B7, and the rest of the notes didn’t make any sense for B7

Now I’m thinking it’s a half-diminished chord - or Ebm7(b5)… is that correct? The prominent Ab’s in the right hand confuse the issue, but I guess they can be considered neighbour tones, or passing notes of some type. Also the spelling of the chord, why not a Db?

Your thoughts?

2

I guess the C# means it is an inverted, altered A major chord? (Which you said)… not that this does not require further thought

3

I think your reading is correct.

4

Now that I listen to it, I wonder if we are supposed to hear it as a diminished chord?

5

Just playing it on piano, it does seem like it’s a Bb chord to an Ebø7 chord back to a Bb7 chord, but that C# spelling is indeed weird. The next measure in the chromatic walkdown has no problem using a Cb, rather than a B natural, so you’d think they’d use a Db.

My best guess is that it was originally thought of as a fully diminished chord, which would include a C natural, but then that note is sharpened to make it a half-diminished chord (aka m7b5).

6

Doesn’t a diminished chord include flats, so based on Eb you get Eb–Gb–Bbb–Dbb ? No C natural. Now if you sharpen the Dbb you get Db, still no C# nor A natural for that matter.

7

Technically yes, and I even thought about this. However, it seems to me that most people avoid the double flats when spelling out diminished chords.

8

Here is a little hijack: consider “Naima”. The second chord in the third bar. What “is” it?

One version says Gmaj7/Eb. Wikipedia says Gmaj7+5/Eb. There is a Real Book Xerox that has A7b5/Eb. Yet another source writes Eb7alt…