News

• Early April: Kenny Drew & Booker Little

  April 2, 2024, was the 51st anniversary of pianist Kenny Drew's "Duo" album with bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. Three of Kenny's songs from this session are now available on jazzleadsheets.com. For the ballad Serenity, besides lead sheets we have a piano melody transcription from this recording. Other versions of Serenity are coming soon; enjoy our video of Kenny Drew, Jr. playing this song on Rudy Van Gelder's Steinway "B." Duo Trip, a medium-up workout for piano and bass, was also recorded by Kenny Drew, Jr. with a trio; Condensed Scores are available for both duo and trio versions. Another ballad, Come Summer, was recorded on "Duo" but in a solo piano setting. For both Serenity and Come Summer, we have piano lead sheets with voicings from Kenny's original manuscripts.

  April 2 was also Booker Little's birthday. We're celebrating with Gandolfo's Bounce, a blues head in Booker's unique style which he recorded with Max Roach's quintet in 1959. Second parts and Condensed Score are available; this song works in a two-horn setting as well as the original three-horn chordless quintet. We have much more from Booker Little coming soon to jazzleadsheets.com.

• Happy Birthday, Donald Brown!

  March 28, 2024: A big one for Donald Brown! Happy 70th Birthday, Donald.

  Last week (March 22) was the recording anniversary of Donald's 1990 album "People Music." We're releasing five today: The Biscuit Man, Prism, I Love It When You Dance That Way, Graylon, and Booker T. The last of these, from a solo piano recording, is available as a melody transcription. I Love It When You Dance That Way has both instrumental and vocal melody choruses on the original recording; both instrumental and vocal lead sheets are available. More songs from this album are coming soon, and we will be celebrating more of Donald's album releases throughout this year.

• More Renee Rosnes anniversaries!

  March 12 and 13, 2024, mark the 27th anniversary of the sessions for "As We Are Now," Renee Rosnes' fifth album as a leader. Renee recorded six of her compositions on this album; we are releasing three today, and the other three will be available very soon. This all-star quartet album features Renee with saxophonist Chris Potter, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Jack DeJohnette.

  Newly added today are the title track As We Are Now, a beautiful ballad, and Bulldog's Chicken Run and Black Holes - both challenging yet fun medium-up songs with intricate quartet arrangements. Besides lead sheets for all three, we have a piano melody part for As We Are Now, a condensed score and bass part for Bulldog's Chicken Run, and piano and bass parts for Black Holes.

• One For All's THE LINEUP

  February 20, 2024, is the 18th anniversary of "The Lineup", an album by the sextet One For All. Newly added to jazzleadsheets.com are two songs and two solo transcriptions from this session. For Anatolia, a modal uptempo song by tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, we have lead sheets, second and third horn parts, and a condensed score for the sextet arrangement. Trumpeter Jim Rotondi's funky bossa Downtown Sounds is also available as a sextet arrangement, with a full score and parts.

  You can get arrangements of Rotondi's Express Train and other songs from "The Lineup" at online music stores (like HalLeonard.com and ejazzlines.com). On jazzleadsheets.com, we have solo transcriptions of Rotondi and Alexander on this song--our first transcribed solos on jazzleadsheets.com for both of these players.

  Another song recorded by One For All had a recording anniversary earlier this month. Trombonist Steve Davis first recorded Daylight--a Latin long-meter blues with a simple, open-ended melody--on February 7, 2013, on his quintet album "For Real." He also recorded a three-trombone sextet version later in 2013 with Steve Turre, and another sextet arrangement on One For All's 2015 album "The Third Decade". All three arrangements are now up on jazzleadsheets.com.

• Two more great Renee Rosnes anniversaries

  Earlier this month, on February 4, we celebrated the session that completed Renee's first album as a leader (Renee Rosnes, 1989).

  On February 16-17, 1990, she recorded her album "For The Moment," where she featured her former band leader, saxophonist Joe Henderson, on her album. (In 1986 Renee was hired as a member of his quartet). Nine years later, also in February, Renee recorded her trio album "Art & Soul." These two albums contain six more great Renee Rosnes compositions which we are now making available.

  from "For The Moment"
  For The Moment (with a lyric version In The Moment sung by Shannon Gunn)
  Homeward
  Malaga Moon
  Nemesis

  from "Art & Soul"
  Little Spirit
  Romp

  
  Next month you can look forward to releases from her "As We Are Now" album (recorded March 12-13, 1997).

• More from pianist Renee Rosnes

  February 4, 2024, is the 35th anniversary of the second Van Gelder studio session for Renee Rosnes' debut album as a leader. Renee recorded two original compositions at this quartet session. I.A. Blues is a post-bop minor blues head with a catchy rhythmic piano figure behind the melody. We have a quartet condensed score and piano part for the recorded arrangement. The Storyteller has a more complex form which goes back and forth from 3/4 to 4/4, but the melody holds everything together. Renee's solo piano arrangement is available for this song.

  Also check out Fleur-de-lis from this album, recorded a couple of months earlier in a two-piano duo setting with Herbie Hancock.

• J.J. Johnson's Centennial!

  January 22, 2024, is the centennial of legendary trombonist and composer J.J. Johnson. To celebrate, we're making two transcriptions available from his 1966 big band album "The Total J.J. Johnson". Say When and Short-Cake are concise, lyrical songs originally recorded as melody and solo features for J.J. Our transcriptions show his melody and solo as well as a few notable lead lines of the big band arrangement.

  We have six more J.J. Johnson compositions currently available on jazzleadsheets.com, with many more coming soon. Two of these come from his 1956 quintet album "J Is For Jazz": Cube Steak, a bright uptempo blues with a pedal point interlude, and Naptown U.S.A., a simple head on the changes of the standard Indiana. Also based on a standard is Commutation, a riff on Charlie Parker's Confirmation that J.J. recorded twice, the second time as a drum feature. NWPT and Tromboniums In Motion, both "rhythm changes" heads, were first recorded by J.J.'s two-trombone quintet with Kai Winding. These and the two from "J Is For Jazz" are all available in quintet arrangements with 1st and 2nd horn parts. Finally, we have Enigma, originally recorded in 1953 by Miles Davis and one of J.J.'s most memorable ballads.

• Herbie Nichols: The First 6

  January 3, 2024, is the 105th anniversary of Herbie Nichols' birth. We are very excited to celebrate his birthday by making the first six songs available from our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project: 24 previously unrecorded Herbie Nichols compositions, performed on solo piano. In 2019, Herbie's centennial year, we had 23 different pianists record solo versions of these songs at the Van Gelder Recording Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on the same piano Herbie had recorded on for his Blue Note trio sessions in 1955 and 1956 at Rudy Van Gelder's original studio in Hackensack. We're releasing the first 6 of these recordings.

• Mid-December

  December 15th, 2023, was the 70th anniversary of Kenny Dorham's first recording date as a leader. This "Kenny Dorham Quintet" album includes the first studio recording of An Oscar For Oscar, an intricate bebop blues head in that classic K.D. style. We have a lead sheet that reflects this version, as well as a combined melody and solo transcription with detailed articulations for an in-depth look at his unique phrasing.

  December 16th was Bobby Porcelli's 86th birthday. We're celebrating with K.D., his tribute to Kenny Dorham. It's a medium-tempo Latin song based on the changes of Alone Together, with plenty of allusions to Dorham's harmonic sophistication and melodic depth. Bobby is featured on some of our "K.D. Challenge" tracks of Dorham compositions; this song is a great opportunity to hear K.D.'s influence from Bobby's own point of view. A video is available of Bobby playing this song with a sextet from Columbia University.

  Another of our composers celebrating a birthday in mid-December is Walter Bolden (born December 17th, 1925). Walter wrote Mr. A.T. Revisited for fellow drummer Art Taylor, who recorded it on what would be his last album as a leader. This one is a catchy medium-up swinger with fun changes to blow on.

  Finally, December 19th would have been the 94th birthday of master composer/valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer. We have three newly added Brookmeyer songs, two of which are on his 1964 album "Tonight" co-led with Clark Terry. The lyrical, modal Hum is finally available as an instrumental lead sheet - we've had the vocal version You (lyric by Judy Niemack) up before. Also from "Tonight" is Pretty Girl, a deep, tender ballad also recorded a few months earlier on another classic album "Bob Brookmeyer And Friends." Carib, a festive Latin song in an unusual 3/2 meter, comes from Bob's 1978 quintet album "Back Again" featuring Thad Jones.

• Early December: Rosnes, McPherson, Watson

  December 9th, 10th, and 11th are the anniversaries of important recording sessions by three of our composers; five songs (and one arrangement) from these sessions are new to jazzleadsheets.com. Bobby Watson recorded "Present Tense" on these dates in 1991; this album was the debut of trumpeter Terell Stafford. From this album we have At The Crossroads, a bright-toned medium swinger in a classic Watson style, and Monk He See, Monk He Do which joins our expanding roster of tributes to Thelonious Monk. Both of these songs have condensed scores and first and second horn parts for quintet arrangements; the arrangement we have of At The Crossroads is an updated version recorded on Bobby's 2013 album "Check Cashing Day." "Present Tense" also includes versions of two Watson compositions previously recorded on his 1986 album "Love Remains": The Mystery Of Ebop and Love Remains. For the first of these, we now have the quintet arrangement available as recorded on "Present Tense." Our notes on Love Remains explain how the two recordings of this song are slightly different.

  Exactly 28 years after Watson's "Present Tense" recording, trumpeter Terell Stafford was in the studio with another master alto saxophonist and composer. Charles McPherson's most recent album "Jazz Dance Suites" was recorded on December 9th and 10th, 2019, at the Van Gelder Recording Studio. Our two newly added songs from these sessions, Delight and Thinking Of You, may seem simple with their lyrical melodies but are full of subtle detail in their full-quintet arrangements. Both have first and second "horn" parts (Thinking Of You was recorded with alto sax and guitar on these parts); piano and bass parts are available for Delight, and a rhythm section part on Thinking Of You.

  On December 11, 1988, Renee Rosnes came to Van Gelder to record a remarkable two-piano track with Herbie Hancock. This song, Fleur-de-lis, was released on her first album as a leader. We now have lead sheets for Fleur-de-lis, a delicate rubato ballad full of impressionistic harmonies. Our C lead sheet shows the piano voicings from Renee's original manuscript.

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