Home > Music > ‘Happy Birthday’ in Jazz (updated)

‘Happy Birthday’ in Jazz (updated)

September 9th, 2010 Leave a comment Go to comments

I was thinking about how to play ‘Happy Birthday’ with a jazz feel and with typical jazz harmonies. I found it at first really difficult to put the standard I-IV-V chords into a more open form with IIm7-V7 progressions. I kept on thinking about and trying different things. Finally I a found a form which sounds jazz-like, yet still natural to me. I sat down and recorded a version this weekend .. sorry, I sang again (of course you need vocals for ‘Happy Birthday’!). The solo instrument is the great Guitalele from Yamaha (illustrated on the image to the left). It is very small, however, since it has six strings, it can be seen as a hybrid between a normal guitar and a Ukulele (which only has four strings). The song also features me on the samba egg.

And by the way, have you thought about this? You know somebody who has birthday? Here is the great idea: Make him happy and send him a link on this post ;) !

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I was contacted by Artem Galitsyn who arranged a big-band style Jazz version with a great femal singer and lyrics in Russian :) ! He kindly allowed me to put his version here online:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

For people who are interested in the chords:


|| Gmaj7 Am7 | Bm7 Bb13 | Am7 | D9 |
| Am7 | D9 | Gmaj7 C#dim | Gmaj7 |
| Dm7 | G7 | Cmaj7 | F9(#11) |
| Em7 A7 | Am7 D7 | Gmaj7 Bbmaj7 | Ebmaj7 Abmaj7 ||

Lead sheet online @ wikifonia: I put this Happy Birthday jazz version also online to the website wikifonia which is a collection a lot of publicly available leadsheets. This is a great website. There you are able to download a nicely layouted pdf version of the leadsheet, you can also transpose it automatically, and download the music file itself!

Lead sheet 2: Thanks to Roger (see his comment below)! He send me a lead sheet for Happy Birthday in jazz that you can download :-) !

  1. Ralf
    March 8th, 2009 at 08:23 | #1
    Reply | Quote

    Hi Alex,

    bin gerade im Internatecafe und hoere deine Happz Bdaz Version. Sehr entspannend und schoen. Wuensche Dir auch bald einen schoenen Geburtstag und fuers neue Lebensjahr alles Gute.

    Wenn Du mal nach Muenchen kommst, dann besuch mich doch mal

    Gruss aus Phuket, Ralf

  2. Louis
    June 26th, 2009 at 16:16 | #2
    Reply | Quote

    Bo ey!!!

    Das issn Ding!!! :clap:

    Klasse !!! Klasse !!! Klasse !!!

    Du verstehst es, einem die Löffel zu verzaubern!!!

    Komm mich auch in München besuchen, ja ? Bitte! Bitte!

    brauchst nur das *f* weglassen und durch *ph* ersetzen ;-)

  3. Lzuke
    November 26th, 2009 at 13:27 | #3
    Reply | Quote

    Hej, so good… Just using it on piano, not the easiest thing for a classic pianist, but it´s slowly coming, but soo good. I´m glad that ive found this chords, no where you find anything like this, just the basic stuff like “E, H and A” nothing more…

    Thanks…

  4. Alex
    November 28th, 2009 at 09:44 | #4
    Reply | Quote

    Thanks :-) .. I’m happy that you enjoy it. Yeah, I also only found the basic stuff out there, that’s why I thought it should be nice to share these chords.

    best
    Alex

  5. Roger
    May 31st, 2010 at 06:11 | #5
    Reply | Quote

    Thanks so much. Just wrote out a swing arrangement for my trio and your progression was really helpful. Maybe I’ll paste the PDF up somewhere.

  6. Alex
    June 15th, 2010 at 07:25 | #6
    Reply | Quote

    Hi Roger! Thanks for your lead sheet, I just uploaded and linked it on the website!

  7. Another Alex
    November 17th, 2010 at 04:37 | #7
    Reply | Quote

    Thank you so much for these chords!
    I just wrote them all down on a sticky note and got to work. I made a few changes, because I haven’t had piano lessons for a while, but these chords are just great!

    So from one 14 year Alex to a slightly older Alex, Thank you.

  8. Alex
    December 15th, 2010 at 23:35 | #8
    Reply | Quote

    Hi Alex :-) ! Thanks for your comment, I’m glad that you liked the chords!!!

  9. Scott
    January 12th, 2011 at 04:07 | #9
    Reply | Quote

    Awesome job, mate! These chords are beautiful!
    I’ll be playing them for many birthdays to come.

  10. Alex
    January 12th, 2011 at 23:46 | #10
    Reply | Quote

    Hey Scott! Thanks a lot and great to hear that! That’s exactly what you should do .. happy happy-birthdaying :) ! Alex

  11. Jim C
    March 8th, 2011 at 00:54 | #11
    Reply | Quote

    The link for:
    Lead sheet 2: Thanks to Roger (see his comment below)! He send me a lead sheet for Happy Birthday in jazz that you can download :-) !

    http://www.alexklaeser.de/2010/09/happy-birthday-in-jazz/wp-content/Happy%20Birthday%20jazz%20-%20leadsheet.pdf

    gave the dreaded “Welcome to 404 error page!”

    I would love to see the leadsheet.

  12. Alex
    March 12th, 2011 at 10:09 | #12
    Reply | Quote

    @Jim C
    Thanks for the hit, I fixed the link, now it works!
    best, Alex

  13. Jim C
    March 12th, 2011 at 14:50 | #13
    Reply | Quote

    Your new linked worked great! I look forward to playing it with friends… for friends.

    I need to provide leadsheets for instruments in various keys, so I will type it up for us anyway. Should I post those versions here? I would give arranger Klaser-L’Hereault credit along with composers Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill.

  14. Alex
    March 13th, 2011 at 22:01 | #14
    Reply | Quote

    @Jim C
    Check out the wikiphonia-Link, there your can download even the leadsheet itself which you will be able to modify with the free software musescore (download at http://musescore.org/). Sure, if you have a nice arrangement, I’ll be happy to put it online, just let me know :) .
    best, Alex

  15. David
    October 17th, 2011 at 23:21 | #15
    Reply | Quote
  1. No trackbacks yet.