The purpose of this website is to make available a collection of lead sheets suitable for a swing jam or any other jam where you want to play some swing tunes. It is easier to play when everyone is using the same chart. Versions with lyrics are for C and Bb instruments. Versions with no lyrics have bigger print and are for C, Bb, Eb or Bass Clef instruments. For now, the books are “print ready” with no hot links. But stay tuned.
This is simply a collection of tunes that sound like music that young people danced to, listened to, sang and played in the 1930s and 1940s, give or take. Songs were included only if they have lyrics and if, without lyrics, they can fit on one page. Multi page charts are not good for jams.
These lead sheets can be played either by small groups or in a circle jam, and can be played with lots of people singing and taking solos. Ballads are included only if they swing when played up-tempo. Go to “real books” for bossas, bop and most ballads.
Generally, Swing Jam Book 2025 lead sheets omit introductions, the opening verses and conventional endings. In other words, the lead sheets mostly show just the chorus – the part of the songs that people know best. Sometimes forms have been modified to make tunes easier to jam. The melodies may differ from published sheet music or from the original recordings. The song forms and chords may differ from those found on iRealPro or in Real Books. Often, additional choruses are omitted and some lyrics have been updated. These lead sheets are not intended to be authentic or authoritative, just jammable. Use them however you like.
The marked tempos in Swing Jam Book 2025 likely are the fastest you’d ever want to sing the song. A lot of songs swing very well at slower speeds than shown on the charts. Some could be played a lot faster if nobody was singing.
Wikipedia says that the swing era, also frequently referred to as the big band era, was the period 1933–1947, when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. That is a narrow definition of swing. Genre categories were invented to help sell records. There is no “official” definition of swing.
Swing Jam Book 2025 tunes may sound familiar to people who are interested in early jazz, Old Time, Dixieland, Trad Jazz, early blues, tap, the Great American Songbook, Django Jazz, big band, swing dancing, western swing, jump blues, straight ahead jazz and pop from the era. “Swing” is the crossroads of these categories.
“Swing” could mean tunes you wouldn’t mind playing at a swing jam. Or alternately, tunes that swing. Close your eyes and you can hear the Hi-hat on beats 2 and 4, with a crisp "chick" sound; the ride cymbal on all four beats going “spang-a-lang, and the snare playing accents and fills.
AI says there might have been 10,000 different swing tunes. Hopefully the Swing Jam Book 2025 has most of the most popular songs and at least a sample of what’s in the nooks and crannies.
Charts were made using version 3.6 of Musescore and eventually those files will be available on the Musescore.com website.. Once downloaded, they will be useful for practice and to change keys. Note: Musescore users without a paid account can download only public domain and Original Work scores. The app itself, however, is free.
MuseScore.org is home to the open source MuseScore program for Windows, macOS, Linux, and its developers, contributors and user community. Its forum is the ideal place to ask any question related to the MuseScore program. Charts were made using version 3.6.
MuseScore.com is a community site to share your sheet music with your friends via the web and for the mobile apps for iOS and Android. Paid accounts are required in order to download copyrighted music, as the revenue from the Pro (paid) accounts is what pays the copyright owners for using their music. Users without a paid account can download only public domain and Original Work scores. The app itself, however, is free.
Join Musescore.Com for several reasons: 1) Eventually you will be able to download legal copies of all of the lead sheets contained in Swing Jam Book 2025. 2) It is ethical to compensate copyright holders for use of their work. 3) Once you have both the program and the MuseScore format files, you easily can change keys, fix wrong chords and make other edits. 4) The program plays lead sheet chords and melodies at whatever speed you set, making it a terrific practice tool.
96 tunes have been added and a lot of charts from the earlier version have been corrected. What's New
No, but there is a Facebook group where we may post some announcements and where members can post about charts or local music get togethers. At this point we don’t anticipate revising the book. Jams go better if everyone starts on the same page even if there is a mistake or two. But we may add some individual charts and maybe even put up some Best Of The Rest charts– ballads, bop, bossas and other music that folks like to play at a swing centered jam. Lots of people have opinions on alternate chords, better voicings, lyrics, etc. Facebook can work for that.
Some people go to a jam with charts they wrote themselves or have marked up. Many musicians are used to pulling up songs in IrealPro or with other programs. That can be fine as long as everyone is playing in the same key. You can avoid train wrecks if you announce the first chord and the number of sharps and flats. Note that all of the versions of Swing Jam Book 2025 have the same table of contents – showing the first chord for C instruments and the number of sharps or flats for C instruments. If you have a Bb instrument your chart may show a transposed chord and likely has two fewer flats or two more sharps. It can still be tricky. At least you can use the table of contents to look up what the C instruments likely are seeing if you are in he same key.
Yes, but only if you are doing so with no commercial purpose. We don’t think the Swing Jam Book 2025 website is going anywhere any time soon but you know the Internet. The bottom line is that if more people are familiar with these charts it will be easier to meet new folks and play some tunes together. And that means we all get to play more swing.
Aren’t they in alphabetical order? Yes but unfortunately, alphabetical order is different with different operating systems, spreadsheet programs, etc. So, when it came to naming PDFs, we followed library conventions and where relevant, ignored spaces, apostrophes, and punctuation in song names. “It’s” becomes “Its” and “I’ve” becomes “Ive” and “Its” sorts before “Ive”.
Of course, there are other look up problems. Is the song title “On Green Dolphin Street” or just “Green Dolphin Street”? You see it both ways in real books. And I can never remember that the song title is “Four or Five Times”, not “Five or Six Times”. Here is a table that shows what you might have looked for and how that name appears in alphabetical order. We’ll be happy to update this table if people make suggestions on the Facebook page. Alternative Names