We are heading back to the jazz standards this week at Piano Pieces. On the Sunny Side of the Street just happens to be one of our favourite songs over here and so the chance to showcase it could not be missed. Composed by Jimmy McHugh in 1930 the tune has been played and recorded but pretty much every notable jazz musician that we can think of. The reason for this, we suspect, is that the chords for this song are so much fun to solo over. Of...

The song Lady Bird by Tadd Dameron was made a cornerstone piece of the bebop movement. It was made famous by the great Charlie Parker and was said to feature in most of his sets at the height of this period. Bebop was a genre of great technical virtuosity and imaginative soloing within the confines of a fairly rigid set of rules. Lady Bird was actually a 1940′s composition and as with so many songs of the era, was originally quite a sweet...

Blue Monk by the great jazz piano player Thelonius Monk is one of the most popular tunes in the whole jazz music repertoire. Written on a standard blues sequence (pretty much) the melody is about as simple a blues melody as you could imagine. It’s all about the way it’s played with this one. Have a listen to a few monk records and watch a few video clips of the great man playing. Notice his splayed fingers and erratic style of...

Bye Bye Blackbird is one of the most performed  tunes in the American Songbook. The music was written by Ray Henderson with Mort Dixon supplying the lyrics. The simple melody of this song made it immediately popular with the bebop and jazz crowds as it could be played at blisteringly fast tempos. One of the most notable recordings of this tune is on Miles Davis’s classic album Round Midnight. My personal favourite version though is from...