Dominant seventh sharp ninth chord

This chord is used in many forms of contemporary popular music, including jazz, funk, R&B, rock and pop.

One consists of a dominant seventh chord with an added minor third placed one or more octaves over the major third (a minor tenth);[6][7] the other, more common, consists of a dominant seventh chord with an added augmented ninth.

[9] Kenn Stephenson says that in rock music the sharp ninth spelling is much more prevalent than the split third version.

The English cadence is a type of full close featuring the blue seventh against the dominant chord[16] which in C would be B♭ and G-B♮-D.

For example, the Elektronische Musik vom Freitag aus Licht (1991–94) by Karlheinz Stockhausen, from an opera composed using formula technique, concludes on this chord.

The chord was used in popular music as far back as the bebop era of the 1940s, and it appears with some regularity in blues and rhythm-and-blues of the 1950s and 1960s.

[4] The most notable Hendrix song that features the 7♯9 chord is "Purple Haze", while it is also implied in "Foxy Lady",[21][22] both on his 1967 album Are You Experienced?.

[22] This harmonic device is one of many factors that, according to Gleebeek and Spairo, contribute to "the dirty, raw, metallic, angular sounds of [...] Hendrix songs".

"[22] The chord is heard quietly at the end of the bridge in Santo and Johnny's 1959 instrumental hit "Sleep Walk".

[24] McCartney called this a "great ham-fisted jazz chord" that was taught to them by Jim Gretty, who worked at Hessey's music shop in Whitechapel, central Liverpool.

[5] The chord (a D7♯9) can also be heard in Pink Floyd's "Breathe",[25] and more prominently in "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", both before and after the final guitar solo, before the vocals come in.