Free Jazz Standard Sheet Music Downloads

"Body and Soul" is a popular song and jazz standard with music by Johnny Green and lyrics by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, and Frank Eyton, published in 1930. It stands as one of the most recorded compositions in all of jazz.

The tune is in D♭ major and follows a 32-bar AABA form. The A sections employ conventional ii-V-I turnarounds in the home key, but the bridge is famously adventurous—it has been described as "a bridge like no other"—modulating boldly through distant key centers such as D major and C major via secondary dominants and chromatic alterations. This contrast between the warmly familiar A sections and the harmonically restless bridge gives the song its extraordinary emotional depth. For improvisers, the unusual chord changes offer both a formidable challenge and a remarkable degree of creative freedom.

The landmark jazz recording is Coleman Hawkins's 1939 tenor saxophone solo, widely regarded as a watershed moment that foreshadowed the coming of bebop. Among vocal versions, Billie Holiday's haunting rendition on Lady in Satin (1958) remains essential listening.