All of me - Gypsy Jazz Chord Chart | GypsyJazz.app

All of Me is a real learning piece for jazz manouche, not just an excuse to play fast (since we may sometimes tend to play it too fast). Written in 1931 by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons, this standard comes up often at jam sessions: its chord progression brings together enough typical cadences to keep both hands and ears busy for a long time. The challenge is to build a solo that tells a story, rather than stringing together a new arpeggio at every chord change.

In this progression in C, the secondary dominants immediately take you out of the comfort zone of the major scale. E7 brings in G-sharp, A7 C-sharp, D7 F-sharp: these thirds offer far more meaningful anchor points than a continuous stream of eighth notes. Watch out for the first E7, which moves to A7 rather than resolving directly to D minor. Further on, E7–Am6 really brings out the relative minor. Another detail to pay attention to is the move from D7 to Dm6 before G7, where F-sharp drops to F-natural. That half step deserves to be heard, not swallowed up by speed.

To practise, start below the 180 quarter-note beats per minute indicated here. Keep a short rhythmic motif and carry it through several chords, targeting their thirds. When playing la pompe, keep the same solid foundation as the harmony changes colour; when soloing, leave space. The chain of dominants in Sweet Georgia Brown offers a good extension of this exercise.

For listening, compare Ella Fitzgerald’s languorous interpretation with Django’s more muscular swing alongside Stéphane Grappelli: the romantic song is still there behind the instrumental display. The transcriptions offered here — notably Django, Biréli Lagrène and Moreno — then let you compare the paths taken through the changes. Before transcribing the fast runs, listen for how the phrases begin, breathe and resolve.