How many measures?

[Doubet]

I want to write a jazz song but I do not know how many measures are in a typical chorus for jazz. I know for a blues it's 12, can anyone help me out?

[Reg]

Any # you Want... Standard tunes are in a form; AABA, ABA, AB, ABC there a lot of standard forms. The # of bars would depend on 1) what you want, 2) tempo, 3) form you decide to use. Most AABA tunes use 8 bars per section. A lot of AB tunes use 16 and 16 or 8 an 8. An important point to keep in mind is to have balance. Usually having even number of bars, so the tune has a flow. Odd number of bars in a tunes require a lot of skill in the harmonic,melodic and rhythmic section of your talents. They usually don't happen by chance. Look at fake books and figure out there forms and use for your tunes. By the way there are more than 12 bar blues...Reg

[randalljazz]

gee, reg...just say 32...(sorry)

[Reg]

Yea...yea... Randall's correct, about half of jazz tunes are 32 bars, most use AABA form, next was 24, 16, 12 etc. There are a lot of old standards, which is a good thing. A note... Modern fake books will use AABC a lot because the last A is slightly different,( C usually means different, not different version of). Reg

[derek]

Both are right, but the typical jazz tune is 32 measures. 8 bars of A section repeated twice, then 8 bars of a B section, followed by 8 more of A on your way out. That gives you a very common AABA progression.

[bako]

Somewhat of a side note.

A drummer friend of mine who was playing lot's of late note sessions in the clubs preemptively went through his fake books looking for all the tunes that were other than the common measure lengths. Then he studied all of those tunes since he was already very familiar with 12, 16, 24, 32 etc. and wanted to be prepared for any surprises.

[Doubet]

Ok this will really help me out thank you all so much.

[Sailor]

American Songbook = 32