Is there a standard set of diatonic ninth chords in jazz?

Question

In the key of C major, making a circle of fifths, I get these chord symbols...

CΔ9 - FΔ9 - Bm7♭5 - Em7♭9 - Am9 - Dm9 - G9 - CΔ9

I left the vii chord as just a half-diminished seventh.

I especially wonder about the iii chord. Should it be a minor flat nine?

I know ii-V-I and vi-ii-V-I are jazz basic, but are other segments of the circle using IV, vii, and iii commonly used in jazz?

Answer 1

Yes, jazz has a standard set of diatonic 9th chords:

Examples in C major:

• Cmaj9
• Dm9
• Em7(♭9)
• Fmaj9
• G9
• Am9
• Bm7(♭5 ♭9)

That's pretty much exactly what you said. However, even though these are the diatonic 9th chords, some of them are rarely used, especially the iii chord you mentioned and the vii° chord, because of that flat ninth. IV-vii° is not very common in jazz, but vii°-iii is more common, especially if the chords are dominant sevenths instead.

Also, please note that my notation of these chords is by no means accepted jazz standard, but you get the idea of what they are.

Answer 2

So user45266 answered your question perfectly well in terms of what the chords would be if you constructed a bunch of 9th chords using only the diatonic scale.

But that doesn't really address the fact that, while it's perfectly possible to construct a set of 9th chords using the major scale, there really is no reason to; if you're talking about jazz (or impressionist) harmony that uses a lot of extended chords (like 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, 6/9s etc. etc.), the harmony of that type of music isn't really based on the diatonic scale at all. And as a corollary to that, music that is diatonic doesn't really use 9th chords. In fact, I would be surprised if you could find a piece of music that is both diatonic and uses 9th chords.

So in a sense, the answer to your question of:

Is there a standard set of diatonic ninth chords in jazz?

Is "no". I mean, yes, there are a set of diatonic 9th chords that you can construct out of the diatonic scale, but no that set isn't in any sense a standard element of jazz (or indeed any music). Now just because 9th chords are used non-diatonically doesn't mean that they're used non-functionally of course (although they certainly can be).

The use of these types of chords started to get more and more prominent in the modern jazz of the 50s and beyond, and one of the major influences on this was Bill Evans, who was in turn influenced by impressionist composers of the 19th and early 20th century (who were in turn also influenced by jazz). Earlier jazz certainly contained a lot of harmonic innovation and block chord voicings, but real extended chords as the bread and butter of jazz harmony started to properly kick in after this point. And the music that uses it is not in any meaningful sense diatonic.

Now I'n not saying this necessarily applies to you at all (I don't know anything about you!) but there is sometimes a tendency of musicians from the classical tradition approaching jazz to view chromatic harmony as sort of "diatonic harmony plus some extra notes", and so group chords into sort of the "basic" chords plus the "chromatic" chords, and when you're not using the default "basic" chords you can turn to some more "chromatic" chords because "jazz breaks the rules". This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how jazz works.

So in a sense your question is kind of like:

Is there a standard set of oud power chords for arabic music?

or

Are there a standard set of lydian triads for rock music?

And while those questions could definitely be answered materially (it's possible to play power chords on an oud, and there are 7 triads that can be constructed out of the lydian scale), the real answer to the questions is "no."