Suspended chord

[4][6] Although the suspended fourth is not always resolved down to a third, the note is still not usually notated as an eleventh because of the chord's function as a cadence point to the tonic.

[8] In his book Thinking in Jazz, Paul Berliner writes at length and in detail about how the improvisation unfolds from this opening.

"[10] Kernfeld comments: "Thus in addition to a slow-paced harmonic rhythm, this composition features chords that individually and collectively avoid a strong sense of tonal function."

Kernfeld admires the way that "Hancock's cleverly ambiguous chords intentionally obscure the identity" of a particular key.

Ian MacDonald writes of the "heartbreaking suspensions" that characterise the harmony of "The Long and Winding Road" from the Beatles' final album Let It Be (1970).

[13] Joni Mitchell was perhaps one of the most prolific songwriters to make extensive use of multiple sus chords, explaining that "so much in my life was unresolved from 'when were they going to drop the big one?'

[15] Burt Bacharach's "The Look of Love" in the arrangement performed by Dusty Springfield (1967) opens with a clearly audible Dm7 suspension.

[16] Carole King's song "I Feel the Earth Move" from her album Tapestry (1971) features a striking B♭9sus4 chord at the end of the phrase "mellow as the month of May".

The concluding bars of the Prelude to Wagner's final opera Parsifal (1882): The first movement of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No.