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So been reading through some GASB tunes and a few questions. Here is Blue Gardenia from the Sher fake book, chose it because it is not widely played and there can’t be some big jazz tradition around it like that everyone is supposed to know like, say, All the Things You Are.
- it seems most every GASB tune has an intro that no one plays? (True of all the things or I’ve got rhythm)
- some of the written extensions, like the G6 or D13 reflect notes in the melodic line, guessing they are there so the accompaniment does not play a clashing extension - but what about the Dsus or Db9? It’s not in the key or melody,
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02-01-2026 10:36 AM
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What is GASB?
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A lot of the ‘Great American Songbook’ tunes were composed with those intros when they originally appeared as songs in Broadway musicals etc. It was a way to set the scene for the song, as it were.
When jazz players adopted them as (e.g.) 32-bar tunes for improvising, they usually dropped the intros.
Some are still played however, especially on slow ballads. Dexter Gordon for example sometimes played the original intros.
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I believe we’d call them “the verse” as opposed to “the chorus.” Which I think is why we refer to a pass through the tune as a chorus?
Might be wrong on that one. Paging Christian or djg.
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Yes that’s my understanding too.
Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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When I was working on a chord melody for “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” I listened to several versions and many had the verse / intro. It was quite nice, actually. I settled on Kenny Burrell’s, which had an Ab as opposed to an A for the Bb chord. The dominant 7 sound worked really well, so I built my arrangement around that. I think these intro / verse parts can be useful, as mentioned above, for ballads because sometimes they can define the character of a tune, and changing even one note opens it up onto a whole ‘nother range of possibilities.
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Many of my gigs are duos with some wonderful vocalists. Being the band behind a great singer is one of my favorite things to do, and I get to do it at least a few dozen times a year. I’ve been amazed at how many verses I didn’t know existed and how nice a lot of them are. Thursday night I’m working with a truly great singer who included Pennies from Heaven on the list “with verse”. It has a long and very nice intro that I never heard before. Fortunately, she has a pdf scan of the sheet that she sent me. Originally Posted by BWV
Finding them can be tough. I discovered that there’s often a pdf online of the original sheet music for GASB and many other old songs. The original score is the one that was granted the copyright, so it’s complete with the introductory verse. None of these has chord symbols - they’re piano scores. So I make a pdf chord chart with iReal just to have an easier chart to read on the stand. I’ll never play these verses often enough to memorize them.
It’s also hard to find the verses on YouTube. Fortunately, I have a lot of old sheet music that belonged to my parents. I also have their records, many of which have complete versions of these songs. I go through bins of old recordings and piles of old sheet music whenever I see them, and occasionally I find a gem.
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No one used chord symbols when these tunes were written. Bands used to play from full charts, so there was no ambiguity or confusion. Modern chord charts and lead sheets are accommodations for working musicians - but they're often sources of disharmony for various reasons. They're inconsistent from fake book to fake book, and many are transcriptions of a specific performance in which the soloist or vocalist took liberties with the line or harmonization. Originally Posted by BWV
some of the written extensions, like the G6 or D13 reflect notes in the melodic line, guessing they are there so the accompaniment does not play a clashing extension - but what about the Dsus or Db9? It’s not in the key or melody,
The only way to really understand the composer's intended interplay of chords and melody is to look at the original score and listen to the classic recordings. Remember that vocalists and soloists often throw in their own extensions, and they often differ from the original. So if you're playing with a band or singer, you're safer and better off playing no extensions in the music you're following than using a 9th behind a singer who sings a flat 9th. Shell voicings help avoid these awkward clashes. Keep your ears open and you'll figure out the preferences of the others with whom you're playing. Never try to force an extension from someone who's playing or singing a melody. The music is much better without such embellishment than with discord.
It's amazing to me how far from the originals some standards are in the common modern versions most of us play. It's also fun to find and learn the long forgotten original verses. Of course, when you play solo, you can do whatever you wish with melody, harmony, and rhythm. Add even one player or singer and it's a totally different ball game.
Here's a pic of some of my family's treasure trove of sheet music. The Warner Brothers book is from 1937. Poor Papa and Hello Bluebird are both from 1926. Some of our collection was bought by my mother and her siblings over 100 years ago when they were kids.
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for example, Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
and we are up to 1930 on public domain for GASB tunes
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Someone here recently referred to the verse of the GASB tunes being the part that gets you to "that's why"
I like that.
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Some might recall George Burns on the Johnny Carson Tonight show. He would sing just the verse.
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You're looking at someone's reharmonization of the tune, you have to look at the original to see what they've done to it: Originally Posted by BWV
Blue Gardenia sheet music
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Pete Bernstein used to go to the NY Public Library to find the original scores for the very reasons mentioned.
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interesting - most are on IMSLP these days, did that when I arranged St Louis Blues Originally Posted by Cunamara
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As someone who came into the GASB as a vocalist first, I had a huge collection of sheet music from family collections to which I added my own. I sent them to my sister, who is a vocalist herself and was interested.
Tony Bennett was someone who often sang the verse to the tune (so, occasionally, did Ella and Mel Tormé). The verse to "Fly Me to the Moon" is fun, because, as Mr. Beaumont noted, it definitely is the "why." Interestingly, the original tune was in 3/4 time (as sung by Kaye Ballard in its first recording as "In Other Words"), until Quincy Jones arranged it in 4/4 for Frank in 1964.
"In Our Mountain Greenery" doesn't really work without the verse, and there are verses before each chorus and bridge.
For a singer, the verses to the GASB are a lot of fun; even die-hard jazz fans may not be familiar with them, and it is always rewarding when you get to the chorus and the audience reacts to the mystery being resolved.
I even decided to compose some verses to songs that never had verses, such as "The Way You Look Tonight" and to songs whose verses didn't work for me. The few I managed to put together seemed to be appreciated by my accompanists and the audience.
John and Paul, who often spoke of their admiration for the songs of the GASB era, sometimes included verses in their own Beatles tunes. Remember "To lead a better life, I need my love to be near..." or the verse to "If I Fell"...
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