This is a great standard tune by Miles Davis from his “Kind of Blue” album, which is touted by many to be the top-selling jazz album of all time. Rolling Stone rates this classic album as the #12  all-time greatest album of all time of any genre. This album definitely transcends jazz. This is the only song from that album in which Wynton Kelly plays the piano. Miles uses Bill Evans for all the other tracks.

This is a blues form that goes around twice (24 bars total). It uses a bVII chord in the last two bars the first time, and in bar 11 only the second time, resolving up to the I7 chord.

The solo order on the orginal recording (displayed below) is: Wynton Kelly, Miles Davis on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor sax, and Cannonball Adderley on alto sax.  Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb round out the band on the bass and drums.

The next rendition by Jon Hedricks and Friends is a vocalese. The cool thing about the “vocalese” in jazz (as opposed to the classical “vocalise,” which is spelled differently, and is a vocal exercise with vowel sounds instead of words) is that “a jazz vocalist takes a jazz composition or an important jazz solo from the vast jazz repertoire, and they write words to perform to it.” (http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article_print.php?id=17706)  In this vocalese, Bobby McFerrin takes Wynton Kelly’s solo, Al Jarreau takes Miles’ solo, Jon Hendricks takes Trane’s solo, and George Benson takes Cannonball’s solo.  It’s a very cool tribute.  Check it out!

Freddie Freeloader changes

Freddie Freeloader-C Instruments (.pdf)

Freddie Freeloader-Bb Instruments (.pdf)

Freddie Freeloader-Eb Instruments (.pdf)

Freddie Freeloader-Roman Numeral changes

Freddie Freeloader Play Along