Our “Core Repertoire” consists of a collection of tunes you can use to prepare for Django Camp. If you don’t learn them, you won’t be alone and you’ll be fine. But if you do it will be that much easier to find people to jam with while you are here. And since the teachers know we’ve recommended these tunes to you they may choose to use them in their classes. So working on these songs well in advance of Django in June is a good investment of time and energy.
Our Core Repertoire is divided into two “tiers” of standard Gypsy Jazz songs:
Tier 1
All the Tier 1 tunes listed here are in the two Gypsy Jazz Standards booklets Jack Soref has prepared. There are links further down the page that allow you to download these booklets in the format of your choice. ALL of the tunes in those booklets are good to know for jamming, but here are 8 we will give special attention to in 2024:
Tier 2
If any of the tunes below are not already under your fingers and you are looking to expand your repertoire, allow us to recomend them to you. Avalon is by far the best known, followed by Sweet Chorus. Cloviswing is the best known composition of Jean-Claude Laudat, who joins us this year with Jean-Yves Dubanton. Laudat and Dubanton also recorded a lovely version of the last tune listed below, Recado Bossa Nova by Luís Antônio and Djalma Ferreira. That tune is very similar to “Cesar Swing” and has entered the GJ repertoire under both names. Finally, with Laudat and Dubanton among our guest artists this year, we would be remiss not to include a musette, and so we shall — see Sa Préfèré at the bottom of this list. Please note that Jack has included two A sections for this tune: one is the standard melody as it would typically be played on accordion, the other is Jack’s transcription of Jean-Yves Dubanton’s performance of it. The latter is considerably simpler, so…give it a try!
All the Tier 1 tunes listed above — plus a bunch of other very common GJ tunes — can be found in these two booklets. Just choose your prefered format.
24 Gypsy Jazz Standards – Standard and TAB (2nd Edition)
24 Gypsy Jazz Standards – Notation Only (2nd Edition)
24 Gypsy Jazz Standards – Bb Edition (2nd Edition)
Gypsy Jazz Standards, Vol 2 – Standard and TAB
Gypsy Jazz Standards, Vol 2 – Standard
Gypsy Jazz Standards, Vol 2 – Standard Bb
Jack, with some help from other friends of DiJ, has prepared other support materials for people learning the tunes in Vol. 1 of Gypsy Jazz Standards, and these are listed below. Feel free to make use of whatever is useful to you.
Swing by this page for reference recordings and play-along rhythm tracks for all the tunes in Volume 1 of Jack’s Gypsy Jazz Standards.
Support Materials for 24 Gypsy Jazz Standards
Here’s a companion booklet for guitarists with some suggested chord voicings to use on each of the 24 GJ Standards.