Swing des Puces — chords & grille (gypsy jazz)
Swing des Puces — key of G (traditionnel), 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
Swing des Puces is a manouche standard named after La Chope des Puces, the tiny Saint-Ouen bar in the Paris flea market where gypsy-jazz guitarists have gathered for generations. Its authorship is traditional, passed hand to hand in the community rather than credited to one composer.
The sound — bright G major that keeps modulating through cycles of dominants (B7–Em, A7–Dm–G7–C) and a C-to-Cm shift before the E7 turnaround — a classic manouche merry-go-round of ii–Vs.
Practising it — map the tune as a string of little ii–V–I moves and drill the arpeggios of each target chord; the C to Cm to G is a signature move worth isolating. Keep la pompe steady and swinging.
Swing des Puces chords — the grille
A : | G | G | G | G | G/B | B♭° | Am | D7 | B7 | B7 | Em | Em | A7 | A7 | A♭7 | A♭7 | G | G | G | G | Dm | G7 | C | C | C | Cm | G | E7 | A7 | D7 | G | G |
Chords used
G · B♭° · Am · D7 · B7 · Em · A7 · A♭7 · Dm · G7 · C · Cm · E7
Play along
Open the interactive grille for Swing des Puces: 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.