Free Jazz Standard Sheet Music Downloads

"Flying Home" is a jazz and jump blues composition co-written by Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton, with lyrics later added by Sid Robin. Hampton conceived the melody in 1939 while nervously awaiting his first airplane flight, whistling a tune to calm his nerves. The Benny Goodman Sextet first recorded it in October 1939, featuring an innovative solo by electric guitarist Charlie Christian.

The piece is built on a riff-based structure in B-flat major, with a straightforward I-IV-V blues-influenced harmonic progression enriched by dominant seventh extensions. Ascending chromatic lines evoke the sensation of flight, reflecting the song's title and origin. The composition provides ample room for extended improvisation, particularly on saxophone and guitar, and blends swing and jump blues elements that work equally well in big band and small combo settings.

The definitive recording is Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra's May 1942 Decca session, featuring a groundbreaking two-chorus tenor saxophone solo by the nineteen-year-old Illinois Jacquet—widely regarded as the first "honking" R&B sax solo and a watershed moment in jazz history. Ella Fitzgerald recorded a celebrated scat vocal version in 1945 for Decca, and revisited the tune in a seven-minute-plus performance at the 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival on Digital III at Montreux.