Candy — chords & grille (gypsy jazz)
Candy by Mack David — key of A (manouche), form A. Below is the full chord grid; on Haute Gitanerie you can play along with a scrolling chord ribbon, transpose to any key, set the tempo, and switch on a rhythm backing (la pompe) to practise your solos over the changes.
About
Candy, written in 1944 by Alex Kramer, Mack David and Joan Whitney, was a 1945 hit for Johnny Mercer with Jo Stafford and for Nat King Cole. It has since become a warm, mid-tempo manouche standard.
The sound — a ballad-ish swing in A major, with the IV shifting between D major and D minor for a bittersweet lift, a C diminished passing chord, and E7/A7 secondary dominants pushing the changes.
Practising it — learn the A major scale and the D-to-Dm colour shift by ear; arpeggiate the dominants (E7, A7) and target their thirds. This one rewards a singing, melodic solo over a relaxed tempo — phrase like the lyric.
Candy chords — the grille
A : | D | Dm | A/C# | C° | Bm | E7 | A | A7 | D | Dm | A/C# | C° | Bm | E7 | A | A | C#7 | C#7 | F#7 | F#7 | B7 | B7 | E7 | A7 | D | Dm | A/C# | C° | Bm | E7 | A | A |
Chords used
D · Dm · A/C# · C° · Bm · E7 · A7 · C#7 · F#7 · B7
Play along
Open the interactive grille for Candy: loop any section, transpose to any key, set the tempo, and play over a rhythm accompaniment — with a real recorded pompe on featured tunes. In the browser, free.