Lyman Lipke here, with your semi-regular dose of jazz knowledge. Today, we’re going to be taking a look at a concept called “secondary dominant chords”. A quick definition, in any given key, a chord that is dominant (contains a major 3rd and a minor 7th) that isn’t the V chord, is called a secondary dominant. Confused? All right, here’s a quick example. In the key of C, you might see an A7, an E7, a D7, a C7 or an F7. Those would all be considered secondary dominant chords. If you’re feeling especially spicy, you might see chords like Bb7 and Eb7 in the key of C. G7 is not a secondary dominant in the key of C.