Free Jazz Standard Sheet Music Downloads

"There Is No Greater Love" was composed by Isham Jones in 1936. Jones was a prolific bandleader and songwriter responsible for over 70 hit records since the 1920s, and this song was the last hit for his orchestra before he handed the band over to Woody Herman, who sang the original vocal.

The song follows a 32-bar AABA form in the key of B-flat major. The A sections feature cycles of fifths and smooth diatonic progressions that create a natural sense of forward motion, while the bridge briefly shifts toward the relative minor of G, providing emotional contrast before resolving back to the tonic. The tune works beautifully as both a ballad and a medium-up swinger, and it was the hard-bop musicians of the 1950s who truly elevated it to jam-session staple status.

Dinah Washington's ballad interpretation on Dinah Jams (1954) is one of the most celebrated recordings. At swinging tempos, Miles Davis's 1956 Prestige sessions and recordings by Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons demonstrate the tune's excellent potential as a blowing vehicle.