Free Jazz Standard Sheet Music Downloads

"Love Walked In" was composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by his brother Ira Gershwin, featured in the 1938 film The Goldwyn Follies. Though the melody was sketched around 1930, the lyrics were not added until 1937—making it one of the last songs from the Gershwin brothers' collaboration before George's untimely death.

The tune follows a 32-bar AABA form, commonly played in Eb major. The A sections feature a warmly ascending melodic line that musically embodies the lyric's theme of love's sudden arrival. The harmony blends Gershwin's characteristic classical elegance with jazz-inflected chord progressions, incorporating natural II-V-I movement throughout. Equally effective as a ballad or a medium swing, the song's inherent melodic beauty shines through any tempo or arrangement.

Ella Fitzgerald's rendition on Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (1959) stands as the definitive vocal version. Erroll Garner's piano trio interpretation, with its characteristically spontaneous swing, also brilliantly showcases the tune's jazz potential.