Limehouse Blues — Free Lead Sheet PDF (Eb, Bb, Concert)

Music by Philip Braham · Published 1922 · Melody & chords only

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About Limehouse Blues

A British Standard Set in London’s Old Chinatown

Limehouse Blues was composed by Philip Braham, with lyrics by his frequent collaborator Douglas Furber, published in 1922 for the London revue A to Z. It was introduced by Teddie Gerard in a melodramatic number set in a Limehouse dance hall, and later became closely associated with Gertrude Lawrence, whose performances helped make it one of the best-known songs to come out of the André Charlot revues of the era.

The tune's title refers to Limehouse, a dockside district of East London that was, before the Second World War, home to a small Chinese community and was popularly — if often inaccurately — regarded as London's Chinatown. The song's original lyric and setting drew heavily on that association, in ways now widely recognised as reflecting the stereotypes of its era; this page, like all pages on this site, presents the melody and chords only, without the lyrics.

Unlike almost every other tune on this site, Limehouse Blues was written for the British stage rather than Broadway, yet it went on to become a genuine favourite among American jazz musicians, recorded across nearly every decade of jazz history since its 1922 premiere.

The Form & Harmony

A Moody, Altered Harmony Built From Extended Dominants

Limehouse Blues is in the key of Ab, verified against the engraved chart used for this page. The opening section is built almost entirely from two dominant chords, D¨7 and B¨7, cycling for four bars each before finally resolving to the tonic A¨6 — an unusually long stretch of unresolved dominant harmony that gives the tune its brooding, atmospheric opening.

The harmony grows more chromatic as the form continues, with an altered C7(b9) leading into F‹7, and later a B¨‹7(b5) — a half-diminished chord — moving into an altered E¨7(b9) before the final cadence. This density of altered dominants, unusual for a British popular song of the early 1920s, is part of why the tune has proven such a durable jazz vehicle.

That moody, harmonically rich quality is exactly what has drawn jazz musicians to the tune across nearly a century, from early swing-era recordings through to modern reinterpretations — the altered dominants give a soloist real chromatic terrain to explore, well beyond the simpler diatonic songs common to the same period.

How to Play It on Saxophone

A Practical Approach to a Moody, Chromatic Standard

1. Learn the melody's moody, atmospheric character. The tune's original setting was dark and dramatic. Learn the melody with that brooding quality in mind rather than treating it as a bright, cheerful standard.

2. Isolate the long dominant opening. The four-bar stretches of D¨7 and B¨7 before the tonic arrives are the tune's defining harmonic gesture. Practise sitting inside these unresolved dominant sounds without rushing toward resolution.

3. Learn the harmony underneath the melody. Practise outlining the altered dominants, including C7(b9) and E¨7(b9), on their own before adding embellishment or improvising over the form.

4. Settle into a confident medium swing feel. This tune has been played at a range of tempos across its history. Find a confident medium swing pocket and let your phrasing sit naturally inside it.

5. Study Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane's recording of the tune. Listen to how Adderley's bright, jubilant alto and Coltrane's more serious tenor tone contrast and trade phrases at a brisk tempo, a useful model for two saxophonists navigating the same altered harmony differently.

If you would like one-to-one guidance on chromatic harmony, tone development 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

The definitive saxophone recording is Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane's, which opens the 1959 album Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago (Mercury, recorded 3 February 1959, later reissued as Cannonball & Coltrane). Backed by the same rhythm section — Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb — that would record Kind of Blue with Miles Davis just weeks later, Adderley's bright alto and Coltrane's more serious tenor trade choruses at a brisk tempo.

For an earlier saxophone reading, Sidney Bechet also recorded the tune on soprano saxophone, bringing his characteristically wide vibrato to its chromatic melody.

Django Reinhardt, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong have all recorded notable instrumental versions across different decades of jazz. Comparing Bechet's earlier soprano reading against Adderley and Coltrane's later dual-saxophone arrangement is a good way to hear how far the tune travelled across jazz history.

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.