I Love It When You Dance That Way – Donald Brown

This first recording, at a medium samba tempo, has an eight-measure intro which starts with four measures of conga alone, then adds the drum set. Our audio excerpt starts with the tom-tom setup to the instrumental melody and fades out on the last two measures of the melody chorus.

Catchy and flowing with a bright vibe, this song has the feel of a standard—though not without a bit of a challenge. The uneven form is 37 measures long, divided into an 18-measure section and a similar 19-measure section. These are labeled on our lead sheets as A1 and A2, as the first 13 measures are identical. The changes have a lot of standard II-V7 movement, but there is no key center. Though the end of the form suggests a resolution into C major, there are no C major chords; the beginning uses C7 as a "V of V" resolution to B♭ major.

This song has a cyclical form, resolving back at the end to the beginning of the next chorus. The recordings of this song show different ways to deal with the ending. On this first version, the out melody repeats and fades out; this is shown on our lead sheets as "ending: vamp and fade melody", with the first note of the melody shown to continue the phrase.

This recording features both instrumental and vocal melody choruses; check out the vocal version for more details about the latter. The melody is played first instrumentally, then sung by the two vocalists in octaves; the horns and vibes double the vocals. The last two measures are played instrumentally in this chorus. This is followed by a piano solo chorus with wordless vocal melody as a background almost throughout (except the last two measures). After the vocal out head (same format as the vocal in head), there is another chorus of wordless vocal melody, doubled by the flute with flugelhorn and vibes improvising together over it. This chorus is repeated and fades out.

Though all recordings have a samba groove, the tempo marking on our lead sheets is "samba or bossa" as it would also work at a slower bossa tempo.

Note: all instrumental lead sheets for this composition are identical, no matter which album cover they are displayed under.

Our audio excerpt starts right at the beginning, with a quarter note drum pickup to the melody.

On this faster recording, the melody is played once at the beginning, with no intro. The last melody phrase extends to a C on the downbeat of the first solo chorus. There are no backgrounds on the solos, but after the out head there are two more choruses with the horns playing the head again, and the piano soloing. These choruses have a long fade out, as in the original version.

The lowest note of the melody, G on the fourth beat of the fourth measure, is off the range of the soprano saxophone. Both Billy Pierce on this recording and Steve Wilson on his "Step Lively" recording play this note an octave higher, while the other melody instruments play it in the lower octave (relative to their range—on flute the entire melody is an octave up).

This even faster version opens with a conga intro (included in our audio excerpt) by Daniel Sadownick, who had also played on the original recording. The in head is played twice, followed by the first half of the melody yet again as a background for the piano solo. The out head is played once, and the last phrase ritards into a final C7 chord; this is the only recording of the song that does not have a vamp or fade out ending.

This recording begins with a one-measure pickup to an eight-measure drum intro; this is included in our audio excerpt.

Daryl Hall's version is around the same tempo as the original Donald Brown recording. The head is once in and once out. The bass plays the melody unison with the piano at A1; on A2 the bass goes to a 2-feel while the piano continues the melody. Solos start right on it with no continuation of the melody into the solo chorus.

There is yet another ending: the last two measures are tagged two more times, followed by a vamp on Cmaj7(♯11) to a final chord.