"What Is This Thing Called Love" Simple Reharm

I was playing this tune in the practice room today and came up with a very simple approach to it that gives the A section a more modal sound. Nothing radical but you might enjoy it.

So the A section is just a ii-V-i to Fm followed by a ii-V-I to C major (the only slightly weird thing is that the second ii-V is usually played as if you were going to Cm, but no biggie). If you have the sound of these ii-V movements in your ears already, you can get by very happily here with a modal approach. For fun, though, I decided to play Fm going to Em (which is diatonic to C major) to get that semitone movement that's so typical of modal tunes from the early sixties.

The B section just uses another simple diatonic sub (Dm7 for BbMaj7) and a couple of tritone subs; again the idea here is to get the roots moving in semitones. To add to this tendency I like to drop down to the Eb7 in bar 16, which leads nicely into the Dm7 and also fits the melody nicely.

The move from the B section back to the third A section is (in my mind) supposed to sound jarring in this tune, but if you want to smooth it out play C7 altered at the very beginning of the third A section (bar 25) before returning to Fm7.

Similarly, on the fourth bar of Fm7 in the A sections you can go to F7, which smooths over the move to Em7. The other nice thing about this is that it echoes the Dm7-D7 move in the B section. But I have to say I like the jarring, unprepared change here, too; it helps create the effect of playing a modal sound on a non-modal tune, which is what I think makes it sound (potentially) quite sophisticated.

This approach works well if you already have the original changes in your ears; if not, you can end up making dodgy note choices and generally not sounding good. So don't try to use an apparently simpler reharm like this as a "cheat" if you're struggling to learn the basic changes!