You're Only Allowed 6 Tunes !

[jamiehenderson1993]

I thought this might be fun
Imagine you are only allowed to play 6 tunes for the rest of your life - what would they be and why?
It might be because they are fun, or useful, or whatever!
Mine would be:

• Blues (I know this is kind of cheating... Au Privave if I had to pick one)
• Waltz (Jitterbug Waltz or Someday My Prince)
• Rhythm Changes (Anthropology or Oleo or something)
• Cherokee (Just because it's a workout and would keep me busy!) or maybe Just Friends !
• Standard (Softly as in a morning sunrise or Autumn Leaves - I just love playing both of them!)
• I'm really struggling with the last one ... either a Ballad (Body & Soul, My Foolish Heart) or a Bossa (Look to the Sky)

What would your choices be?

[sgosnell]

That's just so unrealistic that I can't even conceive of an answer. I have hundreds of tunes I like, and I haven't heard anything near all that are possible. How, and why, would I be limited to 6? Does not compute, Will Robinson.

[AllanAllen]

OP, you didn't make a single choice. You listed 12 songs.

Anyway, here's my six.

1. Sidewinder
2. Moonglow
3. Dexterity
4. Caravan
5. In A Sentimental Mood
6. Pennies From Heaven

[Bob_Ross]

What would your choices be?

Hmm...

- "How Insensitive" (Jobim)
- "What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?" (LeGrand)
- "Softly, As A Morning Sunrise" (Romberg)
- "The Visit" (Martino)
- "The Look Of Love" (Bacharach)
- a tossup between "Miles Beyond" and "Resolution" (McLaughlin; both from Mahavishnu Orchestra's Birds Of Fire LP)

...but ask me tomorrow and I'll probably come up with six different tunes.

[pamosmusic]

I thought this might be fun
Imagine you are only allowed to play 6 tunes for the rest of your life - what would they be and why?
It might be because they are fun, or useful, or whatever!
Mine would be:

• Blues (I know this is kind of cheating... Au Privave if I had to pick one)
• Waltz (Jitterbug Waltz or Someday My Prince)
• Rhythm Changes (Anthropology or Oleo or something)
• Cherokee (Just because it's a workout and would keep me busy!) or maybe Just Friends !
• Standard (Softly as in a morning sunrise or Autumn Leaves - I just love playing both of them!)
• I'm really struggling with the last one ... either a Ballad (Body & Soul, My Foolish Heart) or a Bossa (Look to the Sky)

What would your choices be?

This might be my list if it were about practice, but if I can only play six songs, I’m going right for my favorites:

Stella
Corcovado
I Should Care
Body and Soul
Au Privave for a blues
Dewey Square for a bebop

Those last two are just fun and I’d be bored without a blues or a bebop to play. But those first four are just favorite tunes that I learn something new from every single time I sit down to work on them. They’re also pretty tolerant of tempo alterations. Except maybe body and soul, they’ll all work anywhere from a ballad to a medium up swing (or samba in the case of Corcovado).

[pamosmusic]

Five dollars* to anyone who can look at that list and name my two favorite chords.




* I won’t really give you five dollars

[GuyBoden]

If I was on an uninhabited desert island:

House of Mirrors
Looking Glass
Pud Wud
The Sixteen Men Of Tain
Eidolon
Fred

For my level of ability, this is more than one lifetime's work, so I'd be working on them forever, keeping me busy.

[pauln]

All tunes are contained as proper subsets of the one big tune.
If the one big tune's your first choice, no need to select more.

[pamosmusic]

All tunes are contained as proper subsets of the one big tune.
If the one big tune's your first choice, no need to select more.

I think that might be cheating

[BreckerFan]

Straight street
Just one of those things for uptempo
Infant eyes for ballad
Isotope for a blues
Dance cadaverous for a waltz
Jeannine for some bop

I can live without a rhythm changes lol

[Bob_Ross]

Fred

If it had been 7 instead of 6, "Fred" would've been on my list too.

[wolflen]

Ahhh..easy and hard..

All Blues
Blue in Green
Song for my Father
The Wind Cries Mary
Heres That Rainy Day
Straight No Chaser

I guess this is like a "what if" your alone on a island and these tunes keep the dinosaurs happy..

[jamiehenderson1993]

All amazing choices folks - loving the differences in choices!

[Jimmy blue note]

I have two off the top of my head:

Free until cue. Not always popular on a gig, but since you're stranded on an island... go for it. Can't go wrong.
and
John Cage's 4'33 (Make sure you get the original and not the Real Book changes). The nice thing about this piece, is you can actually extend the form indefinitely and it doesn't necessarily effect the head adversely.

4 other tunes?
Copacabana. (Great for getting a party started)
Help! A great tune for being stranded on an island.
Koombaya. I assume there's a beach
Pachelbel's Canon. A necessity in case you find the right girl to be stranded forever with and you want to marry her.

[AllanAllen]

I have two off the top of my head:

Free until cue. Not always popular on a gig, but since you're stranded on an island... go for it. Can't go wrong.
and
John Cage's 4'33 (Make sure you get the original and not the Real Book changes). The nice thing about this piece, is you can actually extend the form indefinitely and it doesn't necessarily effect the head adversely.

4 other tunes?
Copacabana. (Great for getting a party started)
Help! A great tune for being stranded on an island.
Koombaya. I assume there's a beach
Pachelbel's Canon. A necessity in case you find the right girl to be stranded forever with and you want to marry her.

10/10 would be stranded again.

[jazznylon]

1) Through the Fire and Flames - Dragonforce
2) Baby Shark - Baby Shark
3) Cups and Cakes - Spinal Tap
4) 26-2 - John Coltrane
5) Elevator Musik - Curren$y
6) All that Glitters - Death in Vegas

[AllanAllen]

Cups and Cakes!! Yes!! Decades ago I was in a garage band and we did Gimme Some Money, always went over well.

[RLetson]

Not a jazz player, though I've played *with* a few, in my fumbling way. But there are jazz-friendly standards that I've been picking on for years now and that never seem to get old.

Cherokee
Pennies from Heaven (or Slowboat to China or Makin' Whoopee or Ain't Misbehavin')
Manha de Carnival
I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me
Scotch and Soda (the Kingston Trio song, not the Charlie Barnet big-band piece)
Autumn Leaves

I think what these tunes have in common is interesting or satisfying changes--which is what, as an accompanist, I have to work with. And since I also sing, four of the six also have very good (or at least decent, singable) lyrics.

If we were to change the rules a bit, to "what tunes would you be content to work on," it would be a bit different--All the Things You Are, My Funny Valentine, Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, Moonlight in Vermont, and lots of Jerome Kern. . . .

[AllanAllen]

If we were to change the rules a bit, to "what tunes would you be content to work on," it would be a bit different--All the Things You Are, My Funny Valentine, Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, Moonlight in Vermont, and lots of Jerome Kern. . . .

This is probably the same list I'd have for tunes to work on forever.

[rpjazzguitar]

The tunes I find myself noodling on, more than others, are:

Donna Lee
Giant Steps
All of Me
All The Things You Are
Danny Boy
Misty

[Onlyserious]

Angel Eyes
Lullaby of Birdland
Bemsha Swing
Night and Day
I can't get started
Milestones

Bonus: Louie, Louie