We're excited to announce a wide variety of new arrivals on jazzleadsheets.com! First up is Herbie Nichols' Trio, which completes our set of eight songs from Herbie's 1955-56 Blue Note sessions. Besides our lead sheets, we have piano melody transcriptions from both the master and alternate takes. Be sure to read our detailed descriptions on this and the other Herbie Nichols songs.
Next we have two Ryan Kisor compositions from his December 2002 album "Awakening." Sioux City (named for Ryan's hometown) and What Can I Say? are both mellow, laid-back medium swingers, showing a very different side of Ryan's style from some of his more challenging uptempo songs. The "Awakening" album also features two other jazzleadsheets.com composers: Grant Stewart and Peter Bernstein.
Don Friedman's Jazz Dancing is a bright-toned medium-up song in a bebop style, with intricate changes full of tritone subs and side-slips. Richard Wyands' Candied Sweets is a bouncy minor blues variation, slightly different from standard blues changes in both the head and solos. Richard's original recording, with saxophonist Jerome Richardson, comes from one of the first sessions at Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio.
Esmeralda is a charming uptempo samba by Ralph Moore, with a soaring, lyrical melody which is a great workout for horn players seeking to control their breathing. We have a lot more Ralph Moore songs coming soon to jazzleadsheets.com.
Three versions of Curtis Fuller's One Dream Gone (with Fleurine Mehldau's lyrics) are now available, with exclusive minus melody tracks for singers. The version sung by Rachel Gould is in the key of A♭ minor, while Richard Allen's version is in Fleurine's original key of B♭ minor (but he sings it down an octave). Singers now have the choice—according to their range—to practice with either version. Both recordings feature Norman Simmons on piano. We also have two more of Norman's own songs now available, Precious Love and In A Dream, from his 1997 album "The Heat And The Sweet." These lyrical, gently swinging songs are great examples of Norman's writing style. In A Dream is written in 4/4, but on the recording the rhythm section starts by playing the head in 3/4.
Finally, we have another song by one of our more obscure composers deserving much wider recognition, Sara Cassey. Her composition Honey Did was recorded by the vocal scat duo Jackie Cain and Roy Kral with a big band in 1957. It's an elegant bebop-style swinger reminiscent of Tadd Dameron; our lead sheet shows the melodic thread of Ernie Wilkins' big band arrangement.