Killer Joe

"Killer Joe" is a 1959 composition by Benny Golson, a medium-tempo groove tune first recorded by the Jazztet, the sextet he co-led with Art Farmer. This page has the Killer Joe chords and a guitar-trio swing backing track you can transpose to any key.

Who wrote "Killer Joe"

Benny Golson wrote it. It is an instrumental; the title is the name of a slick, imaginary character, introduced in a spoken prologue on the original record. The Jazztet — Golson on tenor saxophone, Art Farmer on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, McCoy Tyner on piano, Addison Farmer on bass and Lex Humphries on drums — recorded it in February 1960 for Meet the Jazztet.

Recordings that made it a standard

• The Jazztet, Meet the Jazztet (1960) — the original, with Golson's spoken introduction.
• Quincy Jones, Walking in Space (1969) — a funky big-band version with electric bass, a radio hit.

The tune is one of the most common first tunes for jazz students, as its A section is a two-chord vamp.

The changes

The form is AABA, 32 bars. This chart is in C at 120 bpm, with a few notes of the melody included.

The A section is a vamp: C7 | Bb7, four times. The tonic dominant and the dominant a whole step below rock back and forth, a bluesy, laid-back sound. The melody is a short riff that rides on top of the vamp.

The bridge is the harmonic event: Em7b5 | A7#5#9 | Ebm7 | Em7/G# Ab7b9 | A13 | Ebm7 Ab7b9 | Em7 | A7b9. Minor ii-Vs and their tritone substitutes move between A and A-flat: Em7b5 A7#5#9 points to D minor, Ebm7 Ab7b9 is a ii-V a half step lower, and the bridge ends on A7b9, which leads back to the vamp by a deceptive move.

The vamp suits the C Mixolydian sound and the blues scale; the bridge is where a soloist must follow the chords. Practise the half-step pairs, Em7b5 A7#5#9 and Ebm7 Ab7b9, slowly until the line slides between them. In the A sections, the bass and the drums should keep a steady, slightly heavy groove.

Golson's arrangement voices the riff for three horns in close harmony, and a small group can share it between two.