Tunes to Learn List, 2024-2025

Starting in February 2024, I’m going to start working through tunes on the list below. I’ll bold them as I master them, or at least get comfortable enough to play them reliably well without a lead sheet. I’d love to include doing a transcription for each, but I doubt I can keep up a pace like that. I will try to add a listening guide for versions I’ve checked out and consider touchstones for the song. 

I started with this tune list, but since I know some of these already (well, and still remember them: some I used to know, but will need to review), I’m removing the ones I still can play at the start of this project (and putting them in red boldface font below the list) and adding more tunes that I’d like to learn instead. Since I’m still getting used to switching between Bb (tenor/soprano) and Eb (baritone/alto) saxes, I’m also going to sometimes specify which ones I plan to learn on which horn, though mostly I’ll be working on them on both horns, and sometimes (increasingly!) in other keys as well. 

The tunes in black bold are the ones I am, in some form, working on at present. (As in, when you click on this page.) Obviously that’ll change from week to week, as the year progresses. As I learn them, I’ll put them in red boldface font in their own list, below the original one. I’m shooting for 54 tunes this year, but to be honest if I manage 40 or so, I’ll be satisfied; these things take time, after all, and I expect to have to go on hiatus a few times this year when things get really busy.  

This list is, of course, subject to all kinds of changes. 

Tunes Left to Learn This Year:

  1. A Child is Born (on bari/alto) 
  2. A Night in Tunisia
  3. All The Things You Are
  4. Alone Together
  5. Anthropology (a tune I’ve learned and forgotten—but I really want to focus on the bebop idiom for this)
  6. Au Privave
  7. Autumn in New York
  8. Bag’s Groove
  9. Beautiful Love
  10. Bemsha Swing
  11. Billie’s Bounce
  12. Black Orpheus (Manhã de Carnaval)
  13. Blue Monk
  14. Blue Trane
  15. Blues for Alice
  16. Body and Soul
  17. But Not For Me
  18. Bye Bye Blackbird
  19. C Jam Blues
  20. Cantaloupe Island
  21. Caravan
  22. Cherokee
  23. Confirmation
  24. Countdown
  25. Days of Wine and Roses
  26. Dolphin Dance
  27. Donna Lee
  28. Everything Happens to Me
  29. Four (check out this Miles Davis version; I’m also partial to this one by Joe Henderson version from 1968)
  30. Freddie the Freeloader
  31. Giant Steps
  32. Half Nelson
  33. Happy People (Kenny Garrett, and of course his album version‘s the best; this one needs transcribing, just to figure out how he makes the alto “talk” the way he does)
  34. Have You Met Miss Jones
  35. Honeysuckle Rose
  36. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
  37. I Got Rhythm
  38. I Hear a Rhapsody
  39. I Mean You
  40. I Love You
  41. I Remember You
  42. I Remember Clifford
  43. I Thought About You
  44. I’ll Remember April
  45. I’m Old Fashioned
  46. If I Should Lose You
  47. If I Were A Bell
  48. In A Mellow Tone
  49. In Walked Bud
  50. Invitation
  51. It Could Happen To You
  52. Joy Spring
  53. Just Friends
  54. Killer Joe (refresh)
  55. Ladybird
  56. Lazy Bird
  57. Little Sunflower
  58. Lush Life
  59. Maiden Voyage
  60. Milestones
  61. Mo Better Blues (because it’s a popular jam session tune in Korea)
  62. Moment’s Notice
  63. Mr. P.C.
  64. My Funny Valentine
  65. My One and Only Love
  66. Night and Day
  67. Now’s the Time
  68. On Green Dolphin Street (I knew it once, but I’ve honestly forgotten it)
  69. Ornithology
  70. Out of Nowhere
  71. Pent Up House
  72. Perdido
  73. Polka Dots and Moonbeams
  74. Recorda-Me
  75. Round Midnight
  76. Rhythm-a-ning (this version’s killer)
  77. Satin Doll
  78. Sacrifice (Courtney Pine)
  79. Scrapple From The Apple
  80. Sonnymoon for Two
  81. Star Eyes
  82. Stella By Starlight
  83. Stolen Moments
  84. Sing a Song of Song (Kenny Garrett’s song, and his album version stands as monumental to me); I learned this on tenor but should really learn it on alto. 
  85. Skylark (check out this Dexter Gordon version; )
  86. Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise
  87. Solar
  88. Someday My Prince Will Come (needs a refresher)
  89. Song for My Father
  90. Stella by Starlight
  91. Sugar
  92. Summertime
  93. Sweet Georgia Brown
  94. Take The A Train
  95. Take Five
  96. Tenor Madness
  97. The Girl From Ipanema
  98. The Way You Look Tonight
  99. There Is No Greater Love
  100. Tune Up
  101. Waltz for Debby
  102. Watermelon Man
  103. Waters of March (Águas de Março)
  104. Wave (refresher)
  105. Well You Needn’t (refresher)
  106. What Is This Thing Called Love
  107. When Sunny Gets Blue
  108. Without a Song
  109. Work Song
  110. Yesterdays

Tunes I’ve Learned As Part of this Project:

  1. Lonnie’s Lament (John Coltrane Quartet version; live Coltrane Quartet version; McCoy Tyner’s really pianistic version; Sam Gendel/Fabiano do Nascimento version)
  2. Misty
  3. Up Jumped Spring
  4. In A Sentimental Mood 
  5. Fly Me To The Moon 
  6. Skylark
  7. Four

Tunes I Already Knew

The following lists songs from the original list linked above. I removed these from that list because I already knew them.