I Know That You Know — Free Lead Sheet PDF (Eb, Bb, Concert)

Music by Vincent Youmans · Published 1926 · Melody & chords only

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About I Know That You Know

A Bright Standard That Outlasted Its Own Flop of a Show

I Know That You Know was composed by Vincent Youmans, with lyrics by Anne Caldwell, published in 1926 for Oh, Please!, a farce about bootlegging and mistaken identity built around a shopgirl mistaken for a socialite. The song was introduced as a duet by Beatrice Lillie and Charles Purcell, with Lillie’s sharp comic timing a highlight of the run.

Despite a well-regarded Youmans score and strong performances from Lillie and co-star Charles Winninger, Oh, Please! managed only 79 performances before closing — a disappointing run even by the standards of an era when many shows opened and closed within weeks. I Know That You Know is essentially the only song from the production to have survived into the standard jazz repertoire.

The chart on this page offers the melody and chords, no lyrics. The tune's first recording came the following year, by Sam Lanin and His Orchestra in 1927, and it has continued to attract jazz musicians ever since, drawn to its bright, uncomplicated melody and functional harmony.

The Form & Harmony

A Simple Alternating Dominant Pattern in an Unusual Key

I Know That You Know is in the key of Db, verified against the engraved chart used for this page — five flats, an unusually distant key for a popular song of this era. The harmony is built almost entirely from an alternating E¨7-A¨7 pattern, essentially two dominant chords a fourth apart trading places, resolving periodically to the tonic D¨6.

The one real departure comes near the end of the form, where the chart introduces an E¨‹7 — a borrowed minor iv chord — adding a brief moment of colour before the final cadence. Otherwise the harmony stays close to home, giving the melody's repeated dotted-note rhythms a stable, predictable frame to sit on.

That combination of functional, repeating harmony and a rhythmically catchy melody is a big part of why the tune outlasted the flop show it was written for — it is immediately memorable without asking much of the listener, exactly the qualities that made it worth reviving as a jazz standard.

How to Play It on Saxophone

A Practical Approach to a Bright Standard in an Unusual Key

1. Get comfortable in Db before starting the tune. Five flats can be daunting. Spend time on Db major scales and arpeggios (and their Bb and Eb instrument transpositions) so the fingerings feel automatic.

2. Learn the repeated dotted-note rhythm precisely. The melody leans heavily on a recurring rhythmic figure. Nail this rhythm exactly, since it is what gives the tune its catchy, memorable character.

3. Learn the harmony underneath the melody. Practise outlining the alternating Eb7-Ab7 pattern and the late borrowed E¨‹7 chord so you have solid harmonic footing before improvising over the form.

4. Build a light, even swing feel. This tune works best with a buoyant touch rather than a heavy one. Practise with a metronome, keeping articulation clean and consistent.

5. Study Sidney Bechet's soprano saxophone treatment of the tune. Listen to how Bechet's soprano brings a vocal, singing quality to the repeated-note melody, a useful model for making repetitive material sound expressive rather than mechanical.

If you would like one-to-one guidance on key fluency, rhythm or building a wider jazz vocabulary, saxophone lessons in person in South East London or online are available. The free saxophone transcriptions on this site are also useful for hearing how great players navigate standards like this one.

Essential Recordings

Where to Start Listening

For a definitive saxophone-led treatment, seek out Sidney Bechet and His New Orleans Feetwarmers' recording, where Bechet's soprano saxophone brings its characteristically wide, vocal-like vibrato to the tune's repeated-note melody.

The tune's earliest recording came from Sam Lanin and His Orchestra in 1927, shortly after the show's Broadway run, establishing it in the popular dance-band repertoire.

Bobby Sherwood and His Orchestra and cornetist Ruby Braff also recorded notable later versions. Comparing Bechet's soprano-led reading against an early dance-band recording is a good way to hear how the tune's simple harmony has been treated across different eras of jazz.

If you are working through the broader Great American Songbook repertoire, browse the online real book index for related tunes, all available as free lead sheet PDFs in Concert, Bb and Eb.