News

May 17, 2013: More anniversaries & birthdays to celebrate

The week of May 13th we’re celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Johnny Griffin and Matthew Gee album “Soul Groove,” recorded for Atlantic Records in two sessions (May 14 and May 16, 1963). I couldn’t decide which one of Matthew Gee’s great soulful groove compositions to put up. Since Renee was recorded on the May 14 session and Here on the May 16 session, we can celebrate both.

Six years before that, (on May 14, 1957) flutist Herbie Mann recorded Eddie Costa’s composition Here’s That Mann with Eddie on vibes in a sextet format. Herbie played tenor sax, unusual for him. Although it can be played in a quartet (or even trio) format, Eddie’s original arrangement is preserved, with the addition of separate Vibes and Guitar parts as well (the original sextet recording featured Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Vibes, Guitar, Bass and Drums).

May 15th and 16th are birthdays for two more of our composers: trumpeter Joe Gordon (May 15, 1928) and trombonist Eddie Bert (May 16, 1922).

In honor of Joe Gordon’s birthday, listen to his beautiful ballad Heleen. Joe was a very important trumpet player whose peers thought would help take the trumpet to another level. Sadly, he died far too young at the age of 35. Trumpeter Brian Lynch in his recent Unsung Heroes project pays a beautiful tribute to Joe, also recording Heleen.

Transcribed Solo editions: Both Joe Gordon’s and Brian Lynch’s solos and melody treatments are available in separate B-flat and C treble clef editions. An unusual and rewarding opportunity to see how both of these great trumpet artists interpret the same ballad.

Losing Eddie Bert this last year was a blow to many of us. For his birthday I’m giving everyone the chance to hear Eddie’s trombone victoriously attacking one of his great blues melodies (Ripples). The audio excerpt teases with the beginning of his aggressive solo.

Plus, the second drum transcription of master drummer Charli Persip: six pages of detail, including Dizzy Gillespie and Charli’s exchanges on the famous recording of The Eternal Triangle.

Don Sickler
phone 212-741-1175 - email don@secondfloormusic.com
New at jazzleadsheets.com May 11, 2013

Noting some anniversaries …

I found it very interesting that on the same day, May 9, in two different years (1954 and 1966), Elmo Hope was in a studio, recording.
Maybe So was recorded May 9, 1954.
Roll On was recorded May 9, 1966 (Elmo’s last recording session).

On May 12, 1964, organist Don Patterson recorded Up In Betty’s Room. This is the perfect time to introduce him to jazzleadsheets.com.

Plus, the Drum Corner welcomes two new drummers, "Papa" Jo Jones and Billy Higgins.
The first transcription of the legendary "Papa" Jo Jones is from the Jo Jones Trio recording of Ray Bryant’s Philadelphia Bound. The lead sheets for this blues are available, too.

And, you can examine under your musical microscope the artistry of one of the truly great drummers: Billy Higgins. See what he plays behind the melody as well as his exchanges with Dexter Gordon on Dexter’s Benji’s Bounce (8s then 4s then 2s). The lead sheets are already posted.

Jazzleadsheets.com is preparing for a website upgrade: we want an easy-to-use search engine and a smooth checkout experience on a faster server. Maybe video clips. If you have suggestions, let us know by emailing me at don@secondfloormusic.com.

Thanks,
Don Sickler
www.jazzleadsheets.com and www.SecondFloorMusic.com
phone 212-741-1175
email don@secondfloormusic.com
Happy birthday these composers: let's celebrate with new music!

Jazzleadsheets.com’s calendar revealed some important birthdays the last week of April. Two composers are already on jazzleadsheets.com (Johnny Griffin and Tommy Turrentine). This is a perfect time to post another composition for each of them and to introduce the new ones.

April 21, 1932 SLIDE HAMPTON
One of the great trombonists who is also an important composer and arranger. Wikipedia calls Slide “A master composer, arranger and uniquely gifted trombone player.” Sister Salvation.

April 22, 1928 TOMMY TURRENTINE
Tommy was a great composer and trumpet player. His brother Stanley told me that he felt that Tommy was the real musical talent in the family. Tommy wrote this composition for his and Stanley’s sister, Bonnie.

April 22, 1935 PAUL CHAMBERS
The dominant bassist of his generation who was sought after by everyone, he played on over 350 session in his short life. He was also a master of creating melodies that could feature himself along with others in the group, like Ease It.
In honor of Paul’s birthday, we’re announcing jazzleadsheets.com’s jazz Bass Corner which will be launched in full this summer. We are blessed to be involved with many great bass players. Paul and his music will get special attention this summer thanks to a unique Paul Chambers project I had the honor of working on with a truly gifted young bassist, Daryl Johns. Be sure to check out the two clips of Daryl playing “Ease It” when he was thirteen.

April 24, 1928 JOHNNY GRIFFIN
A true “Little Giant” of jazz with a captivating and uplifting personality, and incredible talent as a tenor saxophonist and composer. He wrote and performed this moving ballad for his tribute album to vocalist Billie Holiday, White Gardenia.

April 27, 1917 DENZIL BEST
A gifted pianist and trumpet player (also bassist) who became one of the important drummers of his generation, Denzil Best also composed several jazz standards. Try his Surgery.
April celebrations: Birthdays and anniversaries from composers old and new

We want to add more titles from composers who are already on jazzleadsheets.com, but we’re also trying to add more composers to the site. Looking at the calendar this month we found birthday anniversaries of two new-to-jazzleadsheets.com artist/composers, and we also found some recording anniversaries. We’re celebrating the middle week of April with these:

April 16, 1923: Trombonist Bennie Green’s 90th birthday. Listen to his B.G.’s Groove Two.

April 18, 1925: Celebrate baritone saxophonist Leo Parker’s 88th birthday with Glad Lad.

April 19, 1958: Art Farmer recorded his end-of-session blues. Hear how he relaxes with Back In The Cage [trumpet solo only, B-flat and C editions].

April 19, 2000: The 49th anniversary of Lucky Thompson’s 1964 recording of Prey Loot, being celebrated with violinist Regina Carter’s new recording.

April 20, 1956: The first recording of pianist Barry Harris’s High Step, on a piano-less recording with John Coltrane, Pepper Adams, Curtis Fuller, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones.

We’re also finishing up more drum transcriptions: check out Charli Persip’s drumming on his recording with Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Three For The Festival.

In case you haven’t seen Charli talk about his experiences, check out our YouTube channel.
50 years of Kenny Dorham

April 1, 1963, was the recording date of trumpeter Kenny Dorham’s landmark album Una Mas. We’ve had the title composition of the album available on jazzleadsheets.com for some time. When we realized the 50th anniversary was coming up, we geared ourselves up to make sure that we’d have both of Kenny’s other originals, Sao Paulo and Straight Ahead, on jazzleadsheets to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this landmark recording.

Kenny Dorham’s music from this session is important, and the album itself is classic. It’s tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson’s first recording session. The incredible young rhythm section had recorded together once less than two months earlier for what was drummer Tony Williams first recording session. Pianist Herbie Hancock had only been recording since 1961, and bassist Butch Warren since 1960.

jazzleadsheets.com gives you the option of playing these compositions in any instrumental format: as a quartet or as originally recorded (a quintet), with the original instrumentation or with alternate instrumental parts available.

We’re also making available Kenny Dorham’s solos on Sao Paulo and Straight Ahead in both B-flat and concert key editions.

We’ll also be celebrating additional important Kenny Dorham 50th anniversary recordings this year.

Enjoy this great music!
Don Sickler
phone 212-741-1175 - email don@secondfloormusic.com
New lead sheets from 5 great pianists

Soul Time - Bobby Timmons
Another delight, this time in 3/4, from Bobby Timmons, which he recorded on three occasions. We’re also offering Bobbby’s complete piano voicings.

Freffie - Elmo Hope
Another great “II-V” blues melody to add to your repertory. Read more about it in our notes.

Gone To See T - Bertha Hope - new composer to jazzleadsheets.com!
Bertha Hope, whose first jazz teachers were Elmo Hope and Richie Powell, recalling the days she and Elmo hung out with T (Thelonious Monk). Definitely not just the wife of Elmo Hope, Bertha is a tremendous talent herself, both as a composer and as a pianist.

Something In B-flat - Ray Bryant
As you can see by scanning our Composer list, we already have a lot of great Ray Bryant on jazzleadsheets.com and there are other gems that we’re still working on. Ray had almost forgotten about his Something in B-flat, which was the opening track of Benny Golson’s “New York Scene” album. I immediately got his attention when I told him that this track was used in the Tom Hanks movie “The Terminal,” in which Benny Golson, and some of Benny’s music, also played a prominent role.

Two Sides Of A Penny - Cecilia Coleman
One of my favorite Cecilia Coleman compositions, from her California period.

Enjoy the music!
Don Sickler
phone 212-741-1175
email don@secondfloormusic.com
You asked for it, we got it!

The Feelin’s Good - Hank Mobley
Recently I got a very nice email from one of our customers, Steve Christian: “I wanted to express my gratitude for the wonderful resource you have created …” He went on to say great things about Hank Mobley music, and asked: “I hope you have plans to release more of Hank’s treasures in the future. I would love to see The Feelin’s Good from “Straight No Filter.”

This jogged my memory, and I remembered the session was recorded sometime in 1963. Lo and behold, I discovered the 50th anniversary was right around the corner. March 7, 1963. Today! A perfect time to make The Feelin’s Good available. That Mobley recording session produced three more gems that are already on jazzleadsheets.com. Instead of releasing that session on one LP, Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records put these four selections on three different recordings. Check out the others for more historical information:
East Of The Village
Old World New Imports
Up A Step

Happy 50th Anniversary! Hank Mobley’s music: it’s always feelin’ good.

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Adding another great composer to jazzleadsheets.com: Freddie Redd - And Time Marches On
Pianist Freddie Redd is a marvelous composer we’ve known since 1985 when I produced two albums for him for Uptown Records. The second trio album, where Freddie played this title, with bassist George Duvivier and drummer Ben Riley, is still unissued. However, you can hear this great track as Freddie played it with his International Jazz Connection. Freddie’s music is a delight to play. Listen to this one; more is on the way.

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Joao - Tommy Turrentine
A beautiful slow samba first recorded by tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, brother of Tommy. Take a look at the descriptive notes to learn about the brothers’ differing views on the song. Recorded on Stanley’s “Nightwings” album.

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Fred’s Delight - Tadd Dameron
We’ve also received some requests for more Tadd Dameron lead sheets. Plus, the long awaited Paul Combs book, The Life and Music of Tadd Dameron, has just been released. Paul Combs was instrumental in getting me a copy of Tadd’s big band score (in Tadd’s manuscript) for “Fred’s Delight,” and the big band arrangement (score and parts) is available from ejazzlines.com. Even without a big band, everyone should get a chance to play Dameron’s distinctive melody and harmonies and add it to their combo repertory.

Thanks for visiting jazzleadsheets.com!

Don Sickler (phone 212-741-1175, email don@secondfloormusic.com)
New songs, old year: songs for late December

Jodi - Dexter Gordon
A gorgeous ballad by a master of ballad playing.

Please, Let Me Share This With You - Dexter Gordon (music) / Rachel Gould (lyric)
Lyrist/singer Rachel Gould’s touching lyric creates a new valuable addition to the singer’s repertory.

Blue Wail - Kenny Drew
A great addition to your blues repertory: an intriguing melody with lots of rhythmic variety.

Minor Scene - Gene Roland
Another great medium up swinger by an often overlooked great composer/arranger.

Later For You - Elmo Hope
A challenging head based on standard jazz changes.

Now, news about next year. We’ll be making some additions to the “Features” column.

One addition will be ETUDES, which doesn’t mean you have to have new specially written music. Some heads also make great etudes. For me, Later For You is a perfect example, and I’ll tell you how I think you can best use it to your benefit: follow Charlie Parker’s advice: “Be able to play every melody in any key.” Elmo Hope’s Later For You exercises both your ears and your technical chops. Here is what I suggest:

B-flat instruments:
(1) Play the melody in A-flat concert (use your regular instrumental lead sheet). Trumpet players will play the B-flat lead sheet melody down an octave, except for one measure before D.
(2) Next play the melody from the E-flat lead sheet: you’ll be learning the melody in the key of F.
(3) Next play the melody from the C treble clef lead sheet: now you’ll be playing it in the key of A-flat.

After you have the melody together in those three keys, pick any other key. Using your “ear,” see if you can play it in that new key. If you’ve really disciplined yourself in three keys, the next key should be a lot easier,

If you already play a concert key instrument, then you should learn the melody in B-flat (from the B-flat lead sheet) and in E-flat (from the E-flat lead sheet).

E-flat instruments, learn the melody in the B-flat instrumental key and the concert version key.

Another useful category I’m working on is SAME CHANGES, where we’ll list the standard changes titles are based on. For example, Later For You is based on the chord progression of “All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm.”

And here’s a link I love to browse: the album covers, all on one page.

Happy New Year!

Don Sickler
phone 212-741-1175
email don@secondfloormusic.com
new December lead sheets

Here are some new titles:

400 Years Ago Tomorrow - Walter Davis Jr.

I was asked several months ago for this lead sheet, so first of all I apologize for the delay. Walter was such a great composer, always with his own distinctive voice. As I’m sure you can tell from the audio clip, this is a great one! Pianists, note that Geoff Keezer’s Solo Piano Arrangement is also available, along with a recording by Kenny Drew, Jr.

Focus - James Williams

The first recording of Focus, a duo recording with bassist Dennis Irwin, was made before James started recording as a Jazz Messenger with Art Blakey. I discuss the four recordings James made of this composition in my notes, and I’m now on a mission to see if I can get James’ last duo recording (in 2000) made available as a download.

Pensive - Al Cohn

This beautiful ballad is the first of many compositions by Al Cohn that we’ll be bringing to jazzleadsheets.com.

Sadly, I attended trombonist and composer Eddie Bert’s memorial service at St. Peters Church in NYC on December 17, 2012. Eddie was a great musician and a good friend. I played and toured with him many times over the years, and of course heard great stories from him, and about him. As you can learn from his bio on jazzleadsheets, and from the notes on his composition Speedster, Eddie was an accomplished musician.

Since we’re making Speedster available, I see it’s a perfect time to add a new and beautiful Gigi Gryce composition, In A Meditating Mood, because Eddie recorded it as well.

If you read my notes for these lead sheets you’ll get the picture, and you’ll see there are some unanswered questions. Was Eddie on this Gryce session? If we could see Eddie’s “session cards” (he made notes of every session he was on), I’m sure we’d have answers.

Another thing that’s confusing to many of us: this isn’t the album title we know! We know it as “Like Cool.”

After trombonist/bandleader Art Baron’s rehearsal at my studio over this last weekend, he overheard me talking to saxophonist Jerry Dodgion about Eddie Bert, and he wanted to know if we wanted to hear one of his Eddie Bert stories? Of course we said yes. It turns out the very first jazz record Art was ever given was Eddie’s “Like Cool” album, a later reissue of the “Let’s Dig Bert” album. It was the beginning of Art’s passion for jazz. He showed me his album, which had a cover with icicles on it, when he played at the Memorial service.

Like Art, I was introduced to Eddie’s recording from a “Like Cool” reissue. I forgot to show Art my copy, but I think mine (which had an image of ice cubes on the cover) was an even later reissue than his. Are there more reissues with different covers? I now know about four covers for the same album: “Let’s Dig Bert (Eddie, That Is)” with the steam shovel or a portrait of Eddie playing trombone; “Like Cool” with icicles in a forest or ice cubes with a trombone. I hope one of you might have, or know someone who has, the original Essex issue so I can confirm the first cover. Email me (don@secondfloormusic.com) what you know.

--Don Sickler
Five new composers for November, 2012

We have the honor of representing many great jazz composers and we’re working to add more of these composers to jazzleadsheets.com. Take a look and a listen to these new ones.

Old Ballad (Kenny Wheeler)
Kenny Wheeler is very important composer and trumpet player who should not be overlooked. In addition to this beautiful ballad, you’ll see from his bio that we have several of his important larger works also available.

Our Miss Brooks (Harold Vick)
This is gifted composer and tenor saxophonist Harold Vick’s most well-known composition. It’s a classic groove blues with infectious musical additions.

Three For The Festival (Rahsaan Roland Kirk)
The classic Rahsaan Roland Kirk three-horn arrangement, as you’ll hear (and can see on Jazz Icons and on YouTube) was performed by Rahsaan alone with the rhythm section. Our Drum Corner will soon be offering a Charli Persip drum transcription edition.

The Merry-Go-Round (Jonny King)
This marvelous composer and pianist, who emerged near the end of the last century, is back with new and very interesting music. This is the first of many that we’ll explore from his new recording, “Above All.” Our Drum Corner will soon be offering a Victor Lewis drum transcription edition as well as a drummers’ “minus you” track.

Dannielle’s Waltz (Steve Nelson)
Steve Nelson’s performances and recordings as a vibraphonist are finally getting him the recognition he deserves. He’s also a great composer as this, his first recorded composition, will illustrate.

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