This standard was composed in 1931 by Gerald Marks with lyrics by Seymour Simons.
The song is a 32-bar ABAC form with a fairly easy melody. The harmony uses the usual secondary dominants and a plagal cadence.
In this lesson we study the Do solfege, melodic analysis, harmonic analysis, chords scales, triads and the solo transcriptions of Johnny Hodges and Louis Armonstrong.
Video Lessons:
Lyrics:
Johnny Hodges:
This arrangement is in A-flat concert and Johnny Hodges recorded this song with his band in the same key. On the PDF I wrote the melody below the transcription so you can really see how much he develops his playing from the song. It’s actually a fantastic example of how to embellish the melody.
This is one fantastic solo to study. Johnny Hodges’ playing is very subtle and sophisticated, spend some time listening to the recording to catch the phrasing, the bends, the tempo fluctuations, the breaths etc…
The pick up is the same one used in the version by Louis Armstrong
Notice the use of eighth note triplets. Pay attention to his vibrato.
Notice the harmony in the last 8 bars:
IV | #IVdim7 | IMaj7 | VI7 | II-7 | V7 | IMaj7 | II-7 V7 |
Here is the version of the transcription:
Now here is a live version of the same band, notice the similarities!
And his quartet version, notice the similarities of his playing and of the arrangement, specially the coda!
Join us to watch this lesson and download the PDFs!
Join us to watch this lesson and download the PDFs!
Join us to watch this lesson and download the PDFs!
Join us to watch this lesson and download the PDFs!
Join us to watch this lesson and download the PDFs!
Join us to watch this lesson and download the PDFs!
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4 comments on “All Of Me”
Hi everyone,
Here’s an improvisation attempt on All of Me in Bb.
An exercise imposed to get closer to a jam session, only one take per video, only one video per day !
So yes, the take is far from perfect.
Best regards
Hey Alex, wondering if you have this solo in B flat concert… I’m in a Veteran jazz band and we are using a book that is in B flat concert, key of G on my alto….
Thank, you.
Hi Johnny! Duke Ellington played in A-flat, the transcription is available in concert key, B-flat and E-flat instruments (so in Bb and F). I would suggest to isolate some of the phrases that really speak to you and transpose them so you can take them as a springboard for your solo. If you take the E-flat transcriptions you just need to write the phrases a whole step above.
Little improvisation by myself 🙂