Richard Rodgers, music · Oscar Hammerstein II, lyrics · From the 1959 Broadway musical The Sound of Music
My Favorite Things is a waltz from the 1959 musical The Sound of Music, with music by Richard Rodgers and words by Oscar Hammerstein II. Players love it because John Coltrane's 1960 recording turned it into a long, open vamp that holds the tune and lets soloists stretch out for ten minutes or more. You will hear it in jazz sets as a waltz in E minor, in Coltrane-style vamp versions, and in many Christmas-season recordings.
▶ Plays the whole path: 8 recordings in order. Use the player's next button to skip ahead.
The written song is a 72-bar waltz in four parts. The first part (A) is 16 bars and is played twice. Each time it opens with eight bars in E minor, then moves toward G major and ends with two chords that pull back to E minor. The third part (B) has the same shape but starts with eight bars in E major. The last part (C) runs 24 bars: it starts in E minor, then settles in G major, where the song resolves. Coltrane's quartet leaves those changes behind for the solos. The melody is heard several times, but Tyner and Coltrane solo over vamps on the two tonic chords, E minor and E major. The Weimar Jazz Database analyses Coltrane's soprano solo as one chord, E minor 7, all the way through. His later live versions run from 17 to 20 minutes.
Each box is one bar of 3/4. Play the A strain twice, then B, then C. A tag marks the bar where the harmony moves to a new key.
Changes from a free online lead sheet in Real Book style; fake books differ in small ways. Coltrane's quartet solos over vamps on E minor and E major instead of these changes. The last two bars of the A and C strains turn back to E minor.
Source: Lead sheet, My Favorite Things (Real Book-style chart, swiss-jazz.ch)
Start with the song as the show wrote it, then hear Coltrane turn it into vamp music. The next versions show other instruments and eras reading the same tune, and the last one is Coltrane's own most open take.
Step 1 · Learn the song
The Sound of Music: Original Broadway Cast Recording
Step 2 · Hear the landmark
My Favorite Things
Step 3 · Hear it stretch
“My Favorite Things (Live At Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, RI, 7/7/1963)”, Selflessness Featuring My Favorite Things
Step 4 · Hear it small and short
My Favorite Things
Step 5 · Hear it on guitar
Matador
Step 6 · Hear it alone
Echoes of a Friend
Step 7 · Hear a modern solo reading
“My Favorite Things (Live)”, Live in Marciac
Step 8 · Hear where it went
“My Favorite Things (Live From Village Vanguard/1966)”, Live at the Village Vanguard Again!
“My Favorite Things (with Eric Dolphy) [Live]”, Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane
A 1961 club recording with Eric Dolphy as a second horn, first released in 2023.
Rah
A vocal jazz version with an Ernie Wilkins arrangement, recorded the year after Coltrane's.
Oleo
Green plays it with Sonny Clark's quartet in January 1962, ten months after Coltrane's album came out.
The Sound of Music
The film version many listeners know first.
“My Favorite Things (Live At The Half Note)”, One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note
A twenty-three-minute quartet performance from a New York club, first released in 2005.
Have Yourself a Soulful Little Christmas
A guitar version with strings and brass from Burrell's Christmas album, one of many Christmas-season recordings of the song.
“My Favorite Things (Live in New York City, 23rd April 1967)”, The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording
From the last live recording of Coltrane, made in April 1967.
“My Favorite Things (Live)”, 10 Years Solo Live
A twelve-minute solo piano performance from a 2010 concert, released in 2015 in a box set of Mehldau's solo concerts.