News

• Kenny Dorham's 101st!

  August 30, 2025, is Kenny Dorham's 101st birthday! During Kenny's centennial year we've added yet more of his compositions, or new editions, to jazzleadsheets.com. Lots of great new music to check out, from the '40s through the '60s! Starred (*) songs indicate titles Kenny never got the chance to record himself. In alphabetical order:
  As I Live And Breathe* (instrumental and vocal) - Kenny wrote the lyric too!
  Blue Bossa - Kenny's second recording
  Blue Friday - his second recording in a new key
  Blue Lament* - Don Sickler's version, Kenny's was unissued by Blue Note
  Blue Spring - check out his bass line
  Blue Interlude* - written for the delight of drummer Art Taylor!
  Buffalo - "southwestern funk," according to Ira Gitler's liner notes
  Butch's Blues - for bassist Butch Warren
  El Matador - possibly Kenny's only 5/4 composition
  The Fox - excitement for everyone in the band
  High Seas* - Kenny wrote this for drummer Art Taylor's Blue Note session
  Hill's Edge - hear how Kenny disguises the form
  Jazz-Classic - a cute classically inspired duet; two horns, bass, drums
  K.D.'s Blues - a "cool" blues
  N.Y. Theme - from Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia
  Newport News* - a Chico Hamilton recording, plus a duet
  No End* - Curtis Fuller & Jimmy Heath brought this gem to Don Sickler, never recorded by Kenny
  Noose Bloos - a snappy riff blues
  Passion Spring - recorded as a septet, passionate lyricism, subtle details
  Poetic Spring - masterful interplay between accompaniment & melody
  Riffin' - riffs again, a blues
  Sky Blue - from a Swedish TV show - you can see Kenny!
  Spring Cannon - Kenny wrote this for Cannonball Adderley, on their only recording together
  Strictly Confidential* co-written with Bud Powell (and a vocal version, This Is Strictly Confidential)
  Sunrise In Mexico - Kenny's reflections of his childhood home
  Sunset - a K.D. modal song
  Trompeta Toccata - dramatic trumpet playing!
  Venita's Dance - quintet and sextet
  Whistle Stop - definitely hear the train leaving the station! Lots of fun.
  A Waltz - from Kenny's Jazz Contemporary album

  In addition we have new transcribed solos! Kenny's solos are now available for Horn Salute and Pedro's Time; Back Road and Escapade now have transcriptions of both Kenny and Joe Henderson, and finally we have Kenny's and Hank Mobley's solos from the original Jazz Messengers recording of N.Y. Theme.

• New Kenny Dorham arrivals!

  In Kenny Dorham’s centennial year, we're continuing to add more of his compositions for your enjoyment. August 6th is the recording anniversary of Art Taylor’s Blue Note album “A.T.’s Delight”; K.D. didn't play on this album but contributed two songs, of which High Seas is now available. Besides the lead sheet and quintet arrangement, we have an Art Taylor drum transcription as well as piano comping voicings.

  Other new additions by Kenny Dorham, all with their recorded arrangements, perfect for your first fall gig:
  Jazz-Classic from his 1957 album “2 Horns, 2 Rhythm” (2 front line, no piano)
  Blue Spring, Poetic Spring, and Passion Spring from his 1959 album “Blue Spring” (septet - 4 horns and rhythm section)
  Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah recorded in 1960 for the compilation “The Jazz Life” (5 front line, no piano)
  Blue Lament, first recorded by Don Sickler in 1983 on “The Music Of Kenny Dorham” (quintet - 2 horns and rhythm section)

• Birthday Tribute Daryl Johns

  A birthday tribute to Daryl Johns

  Earlier this month, we celebrated the 29th birthday of bassist Daryl Johns. We’ve featured Daryl on a number of exclusive jazzleadsheets.com projects while he was still in his teens, which showcase his virtuosic playing even at a very young age. This month, we have added more songs from our “Tribute To Paul Chambers” project featuring Daryl, 13 years old at the time, playing overdubbed multiple bass arrangements by Don Sickler. Besides the Paul Chambers compositions Beauteous, The Hand Of Love, Dear Ann, and Tale Of The Fingers, we are also now featuring Daryl as a composer with his own Blues For P.C. All of these are available as full scores and parts for multiple basses (4 basses for most of them except Dear Ann and Tale Of The Fingers which are for 5 basses).

  Our “Don & Daryl” project adds Don Sickler overdubbed on trumpet or flugelhorn over the same multiple bass tracks, and presents them in Minus You format for any melody instrument. Also check out our videos of Don performing these arrangements of Dear Ann and Tale Of The Fingers in 2012, with a quartet of bassists who were studying at Columbia University at the time. This was part of a concert celebrating Don’s 25th anniversary of teaching at Columbia.

  One more recently added song we recorded with Daryl is O.P. Meets L.T. This Lucky Thompson/Oscar Pettiford collaboration completes not only our collection of Lucky’s songs from his two “Featuring Oscar Pettiford” vol. 1 and vol. 2 albums, but also our own “Don Sickler Quartet Featuring Daryl Johns” project. The latter version, also recorded when Daryl was 13, also has Minus You tracks for all instruments. Parts are available for both Lucky’s trio arrangement (tenor sax, guitar, bass) and our quartet arrangement (trumpet, piano, bass, drums).

• Enjoy Bobby Porcelli exploring Elmo Hope!

  Check out our new transcribed Alto Sax solos by Bobby Porcelli from his recordings with the New Stories Trio:

  Roll On

  Sims A-Plenty

  Carvin' The Rock

  One Second, Please

• Kenny Dorham MATADOR anniversary

  April 15 is another important date for Kenny Dorham: it's the anniversary of his 1962 album "Matador." This album features a unique quintet lineup with Jackie McLean on alto sax, Bobby Timmons on piano, Teddy Smith on bass, and J.C. Moses on drums. From this album we now have Kenny's composition El Matador up on jazzleadsheets.com. Fascinating and ahead of its time, this may be Kenny's only song in 5/4.

  In addition to El Matador, we're also releasing four songs from Kenny's iconic 1961 Blue Note album "Whistle Stop;" all seven of this album's songs are now up on jazzleadsheets.com. The new ones are Buffalo, Sunset, Whistle Stop and Sunrise In Mexico. The recorded quintet arrangements are available for all four.

• New Kenny Dorham recording released

  April 12 is "Record Store Day." This year Resonance Records is releasing Kenny Dorham's "Blue Bossa In The Bronx - Live at the Blue Morocco."
  This was recorded in a club so you're hearing a working band environment. Besides "Blue Bossa," there is also Kenny's "Blue Friday." This second song was also originally on Kenny's "Quiet Kenny" album. On the new album, this second song is in F-minor. On the original recording it was down a 5th in B-flat-minor. It's interesting to compare how the melody changes registers in the new recording. Next week look for another Kenny Dorham recording release anniversary.

• Herbie Nichols: 24 new compositions

  All 24 songs in our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project are now available. We're finally able to bring you the music (lead sheets and artist performance audio) for all of these previously unrecorded Herbie Nichols compositions that became our project. We've introduced his new songs to you in four groupings (six compositions in each group) and also accompanied the release of each six with a teaser video which shows the great piano artists we invited to make the first recording of these songs on the 7-foot Steinway "B" piano at the Van Gelder Recording Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Herbie recorded his own Blue Note sessions (1955, 1956) on this same piano when it was in Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack studio.

  In all, we had 23 different pianists involved, each playing one of Herbie's unrecorded songs, except for pianist Frank Kimbrough, who got to play two of the new songs. For more history about our project, check out our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project page and our Herbie Nichols Piano Summit page.

  The "Fourth Six" tracks, released to complete the project by Herbie's birthday (January 3rd), feature established master pianists, several of whom are jazzleadsheets.com composers including living legend Bertha Hope.

  As with our previous releases in this project, a teaser video is available with excerpts of these six songs from our recording sessions. Here are more:

  Here are all 24 titles, in four groups:
  "The First 6"
  "The Second Six"
  "The Third Six"
  "The Fourth Six"

• Herbie Nichols: The Third Six

  Continuing our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project, six more previously unheard Nichols compositions are now available on jazzleadsheets.com. As with the other songs in this project, solo piano performances were recorded at Van Gelder Studio during Herbie Nichols' centennial year. The 23 pianists featured in this project represent players at every decade of their careers, from teens up to 80s. Several of the pianists featured in "The Third 6" are toward the younger end of the spectrum, including Joey Alexander who was 16 years old at the time of his recording.

  We've made a teaser video to whet your appetite for this release: all of the pianists' interpretations are inspired improvisations on the basic leadsheets.

• Herbie Nichols: The Second Six

  We're excited to continue making new songs available from our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project: 24 previously unrecorded Nichols compositions, in solo piano performances from 23 different pianists recorded at Van Gelder Studio (on the piano Herbie played) during his centennial year. Six more of these songs are now released for the first time. Nichols wrote the first major article about Thelonious Monk (his 1946 article for Rhythm magazine). As detailed in this article, the two pianists played some of their music for each other; Monk liked Sailing, Stratosphere, and Strivin' so Nichols agreed to write solo piano arrangements of these for Monk. Only the arrangement for Stratosphere survives; it is now available as well as the lead sheets for all three of these.

• Happy Birthday, Bertha Hope!

  Today - November 8th, 2024 - is the 88th birthday of one of our living legend composers, Bertha Hope. To celebrate we are adding five more of her unique compositions to jazzleadsheets.com, covering a wide range of moods and harmonic structures:
  Bai Tai Blues
  Dotti-Dotti
  Hokkaido Spring
  This Could Be Blues
  You Know Who!
  Besides lead sheets for these songs, we have solo piano arrangements of these songs by Bertha herself, which were recorded by Glenn Zaleski. We've also added descriptive notes for two more of these arrangements: Book's Bok and Gone To See T. You Know Who! is also available in an exclusive "Further Explorations" recording with Minus You tracks for all instruments.

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