Free Jazz Standard Sheet Music Downloads

"Summertime" was composed in 1934 by George Gershwin as an aria for his folk opera Porgy and Bess, with lyrics by DuBose Heyward. It stands as one of the most recorded songs in history, with over 25,000 documented versions across every conceivable genre.

The song has a compact 16-bar single-chorus form with an ABAC phrase structure. Most fake books notate it in A minor, though recordings span a wide range of minor keys — Billie Holiday's 1936 version is in Bb minor, Miles Davis recorded it in Bb minor, and Coltrane took it to D minor. The melody is built almost entirely on the minor pentatonic scale, giving it a deeply bluesy, folk-like quality. Harmonically, the tune alternates between the minor tonic and its dominant before moving to the subdominant area, with bVI7 and iiø-V7 motion adding color. Its resemblance to a minor blues form makes it an endlessly adaptable vehicle for improvisation.

The definitive jazz recording is the 1958 album Porgy and Bess by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, featuring inspired vocal interplay over orchestral arrangements. Miles Davis's 1959 orchestral album Porgy and Bess, arranged by Gil Evans, offers a landmark instrumental interpretation with its modal trumpet approach.