* We omit melodies from our charts for copyright reasons.
"Body and Soul" has been recorded more times than almost any other jazz standard, and once you sit down with the changes, you'll get why. A 32-bar form usually stays close to home. This one wanders through three separate keys and still finds its way back.
Johnny Green wrote the music in London in 1930, with lyrics credited to Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, and Frank Eyton. It premiered that year in the Broadway revue Three's a Crowd, sung by Libby Holman. Paul Whiteman's recording, with Jack Fulton on vocals, sat at number one for six weeks. For a while American radio banned it over the lyrics being too suggestive, which of course did nothing but help it stick around.
Coleman Hawkins is the reason this became a jazz standard instead of just a hit pop song. His October 11, 1939 recording largely skips the written melody. He just improvises on the harmony start to finish, which was not really done on ballad records at the time. No vocalist, no big name band behind him, and it still sold over 100,000 copies. People still point to it as one of the great saxophone solos on record, and I don't think that's overstating it.
The A sections sit in Db major, but Green skips the tonic on the first chord and opens on a minor ii instead. Some musicians call it "the song that begins with a rest" for exactly that reason. The bridge takes the same restlessness further: it climbs to D major, drops a whole step to C major, then works its way back to Db for the final A. Three unrelated key centers in one 32-bar pop tune was a strange move for 1930, and it's exactly why improvisers keep coming back to it.
Sit down with the chord chart and play through the bridge slowly. You'll feel why pianists take this tune so seriously. Each modulation needs its own ii-V setup, so you're really practicing three miniature key changes back to back. Worth knowing too: Coltrane later recorded a version that reharmonizes the bridge with the same rapid-fire key movement he made famous on "Giant Steps." Good rabbit hole once you've got the standard changes under your hands.
Work the chart section by section, A, A, bridge, final A, before you try soloing through the whole form. Once those two bridge modulations feel natural, tunes that modulate by whole or half step (and there are more of them than you'd expect) get a lot less scary.
By using Jazz-Library, you agree to our Cookies Policy.
