Sweetie Pie

Description

This is a tune from Jerry Tolson’s landmark book called “The Jazz Commandments”. It is one of the many compositions in the book that Jerry uses to demonstrate jazz articulation and style. The chart is loaded with standard rhythmic figures that are the foundation of jazz and will help students capture the essence of the style.

Program Notes

Many directors are probably familiar with Jerry Tolson’s excellent book on Jazz articulation and phrasing called “The Jazz Commandments”. This book is not only an exceptional guide to the ins and outs of Jazz vocabulary but it contains a wealth of great music that Jerry composed to use for demonstration purposes. The thought was that if you or your students were already using this resource you would have a huge head-start on charts based on tunes from this book, and “Sweetie Pie” is the first full ensemble piece that grew out of that idea. It is a straight-ahead swing tune that uses many common rhythmic figures that are essential to the style, and (as you might imagine) the articulations are concise and well-marked.