I need 10 jazz guitar songs to learn! Help!

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peerhan

Member
I've got the idea to speak with the nicer Italian restaurants in my area to see if they'd be interested in having me play jazz live on the weekends. I'm totally capable of playing jazz tunes but it's about a step away from the genre that I normally play so I'm short on what songs I should play.

Anyone have any recommendations/resources of good jazz songs that would be unobtrusive to play in a finer restaurant?

Anyone have any experience doing this?

Thanks in advance! :)
 
10 jazz guitar songs? What about just jazz standards?

Autumn Leaves
Stella By Starlight
There'll Never Be Another YOu
Body and Soul
Alone Together
The Shadow of Your Smile
Moon River
Green Dolphin Street
Yesterdays (not the Beatles tune)
Beautiful Love


Get a copy of the Real Book. Not TABS!! (unless you really need them). Commit the melodies to memory. Commit the chord changes to memory. Put them both together. Slight of hand bass, chords, melody and improv done legato. Perfect for restaurant background music. Take your time. Just playing the chord changes to these tunes sounds nice and creates a wonderful atmosphere.

Have fun and good luck!
 
"the hits" (around here anyway...) :)

The Girl from Ipanema (aka the bitch in F)
Take Five
Corcovado (Quite nights of Quiet Stars)
In A Sentimental Mood
St. Thomas
Fly me to the moon
Mack The Knife
Someday my Prince will Come
Over The Rainbow

Are all pretty famous standards...

What kind of band are playing in?

Jens
 
Yeah, I know about Google... Sometimes the advice you get from real people is invaluable compared to rummaging through search results on you own.

Thanks for the list and recommendations! I recall many of these from jazz class during high school.

I'm not currently in a band now, and I plan on playing at these restaurants solo. I'd be playing through an Axe FX II. I like so many genres of music but if I'd have to name the artists and bands that I most closely try to emulate they'd be, Jeff Buckley, Jeff Beck, John Mayer, Tommy Emmanuel (I try ;) ), Radiohead, Pink Floyd. Recently I've been listening to a band named Snarky Puppy; they're very good musicians ( Snarky Puppy - Thing of Gold (groundUP) - YouTube & Snarky Puppy "Slow Demon" Excerpt From the Full Length DVD - YouTube).
 
I don't know for sure, but you might have more luck playing pop tunes and sound convincing instead of playing a style of music that you are not that at home in?

If you want to play the songs in solo arrangements you need to do more than just recognize them :)

Jens
 
Jens said:
If you want to play the songs in solo arrangements you need to do more than just recognize them :)
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I'll be fine; I'm not talking about tomorrow.

What an encouraging bunch around here! Thanks for the song lists though.
 
peerhan said:
I'll be fine; I'm not talking about tomorrow.

What an encouraging bunch around here! Thanks for the song lists though.
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I think its the question in general that is a put off. I want to do astro physics at Lawerence Livermore lab. Anyone know any good math books to read?
 
Hey, I'm encouraging you! You can do it! There are so many tunes though! Get a good fake book, like the aforementioned Real Book. Take a tune at a time. Do it a step at a time. A Child Is Born is another good one, in 3/4, like Someday My Prince Will Come. A harder one, but a truly great one is Bill Evans' Waltz For Debbie. These are all in 3. I don't know why. Three opened up some tunes for me!

I think some folk are just thinking about themselves having to do this, rather than you. So THEY'D rather do pop songs, or something they're more familiar with, than jazz. Hey jazz is a challenge, LIKE ANYTHING ELSE!
 
I'm glad that some people might think playing jazz is like doing astro physics at Lawerence Livermore labs! LOL.
 
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Two suggestions. But I don't know how accessible the sheets are.

The moon is a harsh mistress by Jimmy Webb.

Radka Toneff & Steve Dobrogosz (Vocal version)
Radka Toneff - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - YouTube

Pat Metheny & Charlie Haden (instrumental version)
Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny - The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress - YouTube


Send In The Clowns by Stephen Sondheim.

Bobo Stenson, Anders Jormin & Paul Motain
Send In The Clowns - Bobo Stenson - YouTube

Sondheim teaches Send In The Clowns
Sondheim teaches Send In The Clowns - YouTube
 
Why not pick songs you know and learn them as a solo guitarists. Like beatles tunes, etc I mean who cares. Remember Beatles tunes are over 40 years old. I did that with Somehwere over the rainbow many moons ago and it was a big hit in fine dining areas. I really don't think you can just "become a jazz guitar player because you learn some jazz tunes. but you don't need to. I don't mean that as a put down either.
Like the piece by Joe Pass. above. That's Jazz. If you can play all those chord type melodies-Great. Your there already then.
But if you could I have to believe you wouldn't have needed to ask us. So...............pick some nice tunes folks are familiar with and learn them-Summertime is a good one-easy instrumental.
 
Yeah but dude wants to do some jazz tunes. What the hell is wrong with that? Why do some of you have a problem with this? Don't make your problems his. He might be familiar with the style but not have the proper tunes to pull it off. Maybe the restaurant specified that they wanted jazz tunes. Maybe this is his excuse to finally get this together and just wants a list of common jazz tunes. Who knows? But don't give him reasons why YOU wouldn't do it. He's not asking that.
 
Hey y'all.

Thanks again for the recommendations. I wasn't really too discouraged by anything; I just wanted to nip the perceived snootiness in the bud. The thing is, I'm just not a casual listener of jazz, and because of that I know a very limited number of jazz tunes. I didn't mean to give the naive impression that I was planning to simply headline a jazz festival in the near future. But I know that with a little practice I can pull off playing in the corner at a local restaurant (and maybe make some extra cash). With you peep's suggestions I made a set list that I plan on practicing for the next month or two until I feel really comfortable with it. Then I'll get in touch with some of these places that I have in mind.

Below is a little clip of 'Autumn Leaves' that I have after a half an hour. It's a compilation of stuff I stole from people on Spotify and YouTube. It sort of represents the type of thing I'm trying to accomplish with this. You all are probably much better at this than I, but I thought I'd share.


Thanks Henry for the back up!

Toodle pip!
 
henryrobinett said:
Yeah but dude wants to do some jazz tunes. What the hell is wrong with that? Why do some of you have a problem with this? Don't make your problems his. He might be familiar with the style but not have the proper tunes to pull it off. Maybe the restaurant specified that they wanted jazz tunes. Maybe this is his excuse to finally get this together and just wants a list of common jazz tunes. Who knows? But don't give him reasons why YOU wouldn't do it. He's not asking that.
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Hey
I don't see anyone saying they have a problem with jazz tunes.-Wow-Relax. Just different approaches to try to HELP the op. I have a friend that playes a beautiful JAZZ rendition of Yesterday, by the Beatles. That's all.
Probably was me you were referring to mostly-Just an honest response to the op, that's all.
 
henryrobinett said:
Yeah but dude wants to do some jazz tunes. What the hell is wrong with that? Why do some of you have a problem with this? Don't make your problems his. He might be familiar with the style but not have the proper tunes to pull it off. Maybe the restaurant specified that they wanted jazz tunes. Maybe this is his excuse to finally get this together and just wants a list of common jazz tunes. Who knows? But don't give him reasons why YOU wouldn't do it. He's not asking that.
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Well, I was only joking with my 'famous last words' comment.
IMHO he should just go for it and the list has been provided but a couple of people.

I have (and I'm sure you have too) heard people say similar things to 'oh yeah I can do that no problem' when discussing jazz.
I'm not being discouraging- I reckon with the right approach and enough time that anyone can become a decent jazz guitarist.
The initial post just read to me (and I am guessing others too) that the OP has received an offer of work in the jazz genre and in order to do that now has to 'learn jazz'.

It isn't rocket science but it also is't something that you can knock out in an afternoon..
Also what does he mean when he says 'play jazz'.
Is it just comping the chord changes? Ok, well that isn't a huge issue.
What about playing the changes with a backing track? Well that requires a bit more time to get under the fingers (or more importantly, in the head).
What about chord melody arrangements of all the songs above? That is a bigger task.

I'd also add "Donna Lee", "All of Me" and "All the Things You Are" to the list above.
Another approach is to take well known pop songs and arrange in chord melody style.
Beatles songs are great for this, as well as some Stevie Wonder.
They wil tend to go down better with the audience as well in most cases.

Either way I wish the OP god luck in his endeavours.
 
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