Product Description
By Mike Strand, ASCAP
This is a swing tune lead sheet, with lyrics, and with chord symbols and guitar fret boards, for a jazz group with singer. It's a good basis for a variety of arrangements, improvisations, and contra facts.
The audio sample is an iReal Pro jazz swing accompaniment, combined with a guitar tune from Finale PrintMusic - a jazz quartet. The guitar takes the place of the singer in this sample.
Beer and Cured Ham is a swing tune in 4-4 time, adapted from my Air on B-A-C-H, also for sale as a piano solo on this site. That piece is in 3-4 time.
Can a Bach-like aria be transformed satisfactorily into a swing tune? I think so, as this piece demonstrates -- but you be the judge.
The lyrics for this tune describe several types of beer, which introduce several different chord sequences with a fixed sequence of notes (b flat, a, c, b natural ).
In German these are (b, a, c, h) --"beer and cured ham" -- spelling out "Bach", the great composer who is beloved by many jazz musicians.
I can imagine J. S. Bach, who apparently loved beer, singing these lyrics to his wife, who in this fantasy has a preference for red wine and lamb.
Here are the lyrics for Beer and Cured Ham:
I would prefer to have beer and cured ham.
You may prefer to have red wine and lamb.
But for me, it should be dark beer and cured ham.
Or, if no dark, then wheat beer and cured ham.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Or lager beer and cured ham.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Or I. P. A. beer and cured ham.
.. . Not "lite" beer and cured ham! Oh, no sirree!
. . . . . . . . But I want dark beer and cured ham! For sure!
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.