Alone Together — Form, Changes & How to Play It

About Alone Together

A 1932 Broadway Ballad That Became a Jazz Classic

Alone Together was written in 1932 by Arthur Schwartz (music) and Howard Dietz (lyrics) — the most successful Broadway songwriting partnership of the 1930s. It was composed for Flying Colors, a musical revue produced by Max Gordon that premiered on 15 September 1932 at the Imperial Theatre in New York. The song was introduced on stage by Jean Sargent and danced by Clifton Webb and Tamara Geva. Although Flying Colors ran for only 188 performances and received mixed reviews, Alone Together quickly outgrew the show.

The first commercial recording came almost immediately, with Leo Reisman and His Orchestra (vocal by Frank Luther) reaching the charts in November 1932 — peaking at number 9. Schwartz and Dietz went on to write dozens of further hits together, including “Dancing in the Dark” and “That’s Entertainment!,” but Alone Together became their most enduring and most-recorded song.

Artie Shaw made the first jazz reading of the tune in 1939, and from there it entered the standard repertoire. Miles Davis recorded a justly famous Charles Mingus arrangement on the 1955 album Blue Moods, Chet Baker gave it a definitive ballad treatment on his 1959 album Chet, and the song has since been recorded by virtually every major jazz artist including Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Julie London and Grant Green. The song’s flexibility — equally rewarding as a swing ballad, a medium swinger, or in a bossa nova feel — has kept it a jam-session favourite for nearly a century.

The Form & Harmony

An Unusual 44-Bar AABA in D Minor

Alone Together has one of the most distinctive forms in the standard repertoire: 44 bars in AABA, but with an irregular distribution. The first two A sections are 14 bars long instead of the standard 8, and the first A ends with first and second endings. The bridge (B) sits at a more conventional 8 bars, and the final A is also 8 bars — a contracted variation on the opening A material rather than another full 14-bar repeat. So the bar count is 14 + 14 + 8 + 8 = 44, with the final A acting as a kind of compressed coda.

The tune is normally played in the concert key of D minor — E minor for tenor saxophone, B minor for alto saxophone. The opening four bars set up the harmonic identity of the entire tune: a Dm6 vamp answered by an Em7♭5 → A7♭9 minor ii–V–i. This is the sound that defines Alone Together, and once you have it under your fingers you have the heart of the harmony.

The harmony is rich for a popular song of its era. The A sections move through ii–V–i progressions in D minor and a brief shift to G minor, with a memorable ascending sequence (Bm7 → E7 → Gm7 → C7 → F6) that drives the final phrase of the long A section. The bridge sits primarily in F major (the relative major of D minor) before the final 8-bar A returns to D minor. For improvisers, this is a tune that rewards both arpeggio-based playing on the minor ii–V–i and more melodic, motivic thinking through the longer 14-bar form.

How to Learn Alone Together

A Practical Approach for Saxophonists

1. Learn the melody by ear. The melody is highly singable but rhythmically subtle, with characteristic dotted-quarter pickups and held notes that ring across the bar lines. Listen to a definitive recording before playing from the page — Miles Davis on Blue Moods or Chet Baker on Chet are both excellent reference points — and copy the phrasing. The lead sheet captures the notes, but the lyrical feel comes from listening.

2. Map the unusual 14-bar A section. Unlike most jazz standards, the first two A sections of Alone Together are 14 bars long instead of the standard 8 — the final A is a contracted 8-bar variation. This is genuinely disorienting at first. Practise just the long A section repeatedly, paying attention to where the harmony lands at each four-bar mark. Once you can navigate the 14 bars without losing your place, the rest of the form falls into place quickly.

3. Drill the minor ii–V–i progressions. The opening Em7♭5 → A7♭9 → Dm progression is the harmonic DNA of the tune — a textbook minor ii–V–i in D minor. Arpeggiate each chord, then practise altered scale and harmonic minor ideas over the A7♭9. The same progression appears transposed when the harmony shifts to G minor and back to D minor, so the practice doubles up.

4. Try a bossa nova feel. Alone Together is famously flexible — it sounds wonderful as a swing ballad at around 80 BPM, a medium-up swinger at 160, or in a bossa nova feel at any tempo. Once you have the melody and changes secure, experiment with different grooves and tempos. The minor harmony lends itself particularly well to a Latin treatment, and many great recordings (including Sonny Rollins’s) take this approach.

If you would like one-to-one guidance working through Alone Together or any standard, saxophone lessons in person in South East London or online are available, with a focus on jazz repertoire, transcription study and technique. You may also find our free saxophone transcriptions useful — studying how Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Dexter Gordon approached minor-key standards is one of the most direct ways to build your jazz vocabulary.

Essential Alone Together Recordings

Five Versions Worth Knowing

The most influential jazz recording is Miles Davis (1955) on Blue Moods. Recorded on 9 July 1955 at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio with Charles Mingus on bass, Britt Woodman on trombone, Teddy Charles on vibraphone and Elvin Jones on drums, the arrangement was written by Mingus and the result is one of the most atmospheric readings of the tune ever recorded.

From there, work through Chet Baker (1959) on Chet for the definitive ballad treatment, Sonny Rollins on Sonny Rollins on Impulse! (1965) for a powerful tenor reading, Grant Green on the album of the same name (1979) for a guitar perspective, and the original Artie Shaw recording from 1939 for the historical context — the first jazz reading of the tune.

If you enjoy this style of minor-key jazz ballad, browse the online real book index for related tunes all available as free lead sheet PDFs in Concert, Bb and Eb.