Sweet Georgia Brown — chords & grille (gypsy jazz)
Sweet Georgia Brown by Maceo Pinkard, Ben Bernie & Kenneth Casey — key of G (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
Composed in 1925 by Maceo Pinkard and Ben Bernie (lyrics by Kenneth Casey), Sweet Georgia Brown became a jam-session staple and entered the manouche book via the Hot Club tradition.
The sound — G major, but it opens far from home: a long chain of dominants (E7–A7–D7) winds its way back to the tonic, the harmony's whole engine. Bright, driving, endlessly loopable.
Practising it — this tune is a dominant-cycle drill. Play each 7th arpeggio in turn (E7, A7, D7, G) and target the guide tones — the 3rd of each chord falling into the next. Steady medium-up tempo, then build speed.
Sweet Georgia Brown chords — the grille
A : | E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 | A7 | A7 | A7 | A7 | D7 | D7 | D7 | D7 | G | G | G | B7 | E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 | A7 | A7 | A7 | A7 | Em7 | B7 | Em7 | B7 | G7 F#7 | F7 E7 | A7 D7 | G B7 |
Chords used
E7 · A7 · D7 · G · B7 · Em7 · G7 · F#7 · F7
Play along
Open the interactive grille for Sweet Georgia Brown: 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.