A while back I was taking some music classes, I started writing a list of songs that I mostly know, somewhat know, or would like to know. When I began learning saxophone, a lot of emphasis was placed on reading tunes. These days I am playing more things by ear and trying to have more to play.
Paul Contos once made up a story about a hypothetical guy who had played third chair trumpet in a symphony for years, but when his friends asked him to play something at home he didn’t have a chart and couldn’t. Don’t be that guy!
Here’s my growing list (in no particular order):
- Nica’s Dream
- Night in Tunisia
- All Blues
- Green Dolphin Street
- Dolphin Dance
- Freedom Jazz Dance
- Come Candela
- Mambo Inn
- Afro Blue
- Sabor
- St. Thomas
- Billie’s Bounce
- Anthropology
- Fee Fi Fo Fum
- Wave
- Desafinado
- Girl from Ipanema
- Favela
- Four
- Bye Bye Blackbird
- Skylark
- Crazeology
- Bebop
- Sugar
- Midnight Special
- Song For My Father
- Ceora
- Watermelon Man
- Maiden Voyage
- Impressions
- So What
- Scrapple From the Apple
- Moose the Mooch
- Don’t Stop the Carnival
- Harlem Nocturne
- Moanin
- Work Song
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow
- Spain (with intro)
- La Fiesta
- My Funny Valentine
- There is No Greater Love
- Have you Met Miss Jones
- Black Orpheus
- Softly as the Morning Sunrise
- Alone Together
- You and the Night and the Music
- Shadow of Your Smile
- Recordame
Gwilson says
What about the Dave Brubeck quartet?
Neal says
What about them?