Jan. Song Of The Month

MikeK

This month's song is a quintessential jazz standard and commonly called GJ tune at gigs and jams alike. For reasons unknown to me, it was left out of the Django Fakebook. Maybe because we all know it? It was written by Gerald Marks & Seymour Simons in 1931. Interestingly, it seems to be the only song written by that pair that became a jazz standard. Early hit versions of it include those by the incomparable Mildred Bailey (with Paul Whiteman's Orchestra) & Louis Armstrong. But Billie Holiday took it to a mystical level and secured it as the treasure that it remains to this day when she recorded it in 1941 (with Lester Young). Other notable versions of it include those by Frank Sinatra, as well as Willie Nelson when he recoded it on his Stardust album in 1977. Surprisingly, Django only recorded it once, on 12/17/40. Attached is a link to that version. I'll send the chord chart that my band uses for it later. It'll be hand written, since, as I mentioned, it's not in the DFB. I love soloing over it since it's got that classic chord movement that allows you to do so much over it.

https://youtu.be/wLjG8L4nnh4?si=6wLztmuGjvzdSj0e

Phil

Thanks Mike! What a beautifully melodic and deceptively simple solo by Django! I love the Billie Holliday/Lester young sessions.

Here's a nice link to Clement Reboul demonstrating the solo

https://youtu.be/IWE2NwPwZ8M?si=eHRCr-qnO5UlsB7J

flaco

https://djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/119408#Comment_119408

Absolutely, this is one of my favorite Django solos, and I think it’s an especially good one to study. I saw a Stephane Wrembel video recently where he played a little bit of this solo and talked about it. Check out about 3:07 here. Stephane plays it with 2 fingers as well!

https://youtu.be/AOvT8w_-rGA?si=Gv4PtsKMWe-iqqS-

tbleen

This inspired me to relearn the Django solo this morning. Some great lines! I especially love the lines he plays at the end of the first A section (over the Dmi-G7, that leads so nicely to the 3rd of the root chord of C)

Played on my current favorite guitar by @paulmcevoy75 (check out his other one for sale on this forum. highly recommend!).

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eTvP9tVgh9A

Buco

Nice work @tbleen

I learned that sweet lick in bar 58 of Reboul's video.

BillDaCostaWilliams

I learned that sweet lick in bar 58 of Reboul's video.

Still working on that one.

I hadn't listened to Django's solo on this for a long time - as said above, it has some classic phrases.

BillDaCostaWilliams

In case anyone needs the original chart:

All of me.pdf

voutoreenie

Incidentally, in a lesson, Antoine Boyer told me this was the Django solo that helped him out the most when he was first starting and to learn it by ear if possible.

billyshakes

This was one of the first songs where I started to really see the melody overlaid on the chords. It really spells out the harmony nicely.

littlemark

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/119427#Comment_119427

Same for me!

MikeK

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/119421#Comment_119421

Thanks for posting the original chart, Bill. Attached is the one my band uses. It's almost the same, but it has some minor changes--primarily the ii-V-i in bars 5 thru 8 and 21 thru 24. I feel like adding the Emin really helps to bring out the chordal colors that indicate the shift to Dmin as the center for those bars. Or at least that's the way I see it. Thanks for everyone who has joined in the discussion here. Someone could probably teach an entire class on this song and the soloing possibilities over the changes. For geeks like us, someone could probably teach an entire class on just what Django was thinking and doing over these changes. Great stuff!

2025-01-06 11-08.pdf