Product Description
Isham Edgar Jones certainly kept busy. By age 26 the Chicago tenor saxophonist led his own dance band, and it was one of the most popular of the 1920s. But he also found time to write melodies for a whole raft of popular songs. Twenty-one Isham Jones Orchestra recordings of his compositions peaked in the top ten most popular, and eight of those made it to the number one spot. One was "It Had to Be You," with words by Gus Kahn.
Although written in 1924, "It Had to Be You" defies the passage of time, still sounding fresh and contemporary. It remains popular and has evolved into a jazz standard.
This brass quintet version retains the original key of G Major. It opens with a suggested tempo of 104 BPM and a nine-measure introduction that combines figures and phrases from both verse and chorus. At rehearsal letter A, Trumpet 1 begins the melody of the familiar chorus, accompanied by Tuba and Horn in F. Trumpet 2 quickly joins and the melody changes to an upper brass trio. The melody then passes to Trombone, back to the trio, to Tuba and then to Horn in F. The section winds up with the original Trumpet-Horn-Tuba combination.
The seldom-heard verse begins at rehearsal letter C and takes the form of a sort of call-and-response between upper and lower brass. As the section nears its end, tempo slows to a suggested 80 BPM and Trombone begins to take over.
Rehearsal letter D marks the beginning of the chorus final time through, and here it is mostly Trombone handling the melody in quasi-Dixieland fashion. The upper brass trio and Tuba both help out, but, for the most part, it is Trombone all the way to the end. (Although, a good time is had by all!)
Performance time is about three minutes, fifty seconds. All notes are within the normal playing range of each instrument with the following exceptions: (1) Trumpet 1 has one or two A-above-its-staff notes, and (2) in the wrap-up near the end, Trombone has the option of playing a short phrase either (a) within its register or (b) higher, including a G above the staff.
The arranger, Les Smith, will be happy to provide substitute parts (for example, treble clef baritone for trombone) at no charge. He would like to receive your suggestions, comments, corrections and criticisms. Contact him at lessmith61@bellsouth.net. For more arrangements by Les, enter "Sweetwater Brass Press" (without the quotation marks) in the Sheet Music Plus or Sheet Music Direct search box.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.