Makin' Whoopee — Free Lead Sheet PDF (Eb, Bb, Concert)

Music by Walter Donaldson · Published 1928 · Melody & chords only

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About Makin' Whoopee

A Wry Warning About Marriage, Sung by Eddie Cantor

Makin' Whoopee was composed by Walter Donaldson, with lyrics by Gus Kahn, and published in 1928 for the Broadway musical Whoopee!, where it was introduced by Eddie Cantor. The show, based on the play The Nervous Wreck, was a major hit built around Cantor’s star power, and the same score also produced another enduring standard, “Love Me or Leave Me,” sung by Ruth Etting.

What has kept Makin’ Whoopee in the repertoire for nearly a century is Gus Kahn’s lyric — a dry, comic account of a couple’s journey from wedding day through the mundane friction of married life and on to a divorce court appearance. Bing Crosby’s recording with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, cut on 22 December 1928, reached number eight on the American charts within weeks of the show’s opening, helping the tune spread far beyond the production itself.

The chart on this page offers the melody and chords, no lyrics.

The Form & Harmony

A Conversational Melody Over Rich ii-V Harmony

Makin' Whoopee is a standard 32-bar AABA song form, most commonly played in the key of F at a relaxed medium-swing tempo. Its melody sits within a narrow range and moves in short, speech-like phrases — a deliberate match for Gus Kahn’s conversational, storytelling lyric, which reads almost like a spoken narration set to music rather than a conventional love song.

The harmony underneath is more active than the plain-spoken melody might suggest. Recurring ii-V progressions run throughout the form, giving soloists plenty of clear harmonic movement to outline, and the bridge shifts the tune’s centre of gravity toward the subdominant, providing a real moment of contrast before the final A section returns.

That combination — an unshowy, narrow melody riding over genuinely active ii-V harmony — is part of what has made the tune a durable vehicle for both vocalists, who can lean into the wit of the lyric, and instrumentalists, who have plenty of harmonic movement to work with underneath.

How to Play It on Saxophone

A Practical Approach to a Conversational Standard

1. Learn the melody’s conversational phrasing. The melody sits within a narrow range and follows the natural rhythm of speech — learn to sing it as though you were telling the story the lyric tells, even without singing the actual words.

2. Drill the recurring ii-V progressions. This tune moves through ii-V progressions repeatedly across its form. Practise outlining them on their own until moving between them feels automatic, since that fluency is exactly what the tune rewards once you start to improvise.

3. Feel the bridge’s move toward the subdominant. The bridge shifts the harmonic centre of gravity, giving the tune a moment of real contrast. Practise the bridge on its own so that shift feels intentional rather than accidental when you reach it in the full form.

4. Build a relaxed medium-swing tempo. Work with a metronome at a comfortable medium tempo, keeping the feel relaxed and conversational rather than pushing for speed.

5. Study how Ray Charles reworked the tune. Listen to Ray Charles’s 1964 recording, which reshapes the tune with ad-libbed, bluesy asides, and notice how far a performer can depart from the original delivery while still respecting the underlying song.

If you would like one-to-one guidance on jazz phrasing, improvisation or building a wider 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 this and other standards.

Essential Recordings

Where to Start Listening

Start with Eddie Cantor’s original from the 1928 production of Whoopee!, the performance that introduced the tune to the public. Bing Crosby’s recording with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, cut on 22 December 1928, reached number eight on the American charts within weeks and helped carry the tune well beyond the show itself.

For a completely different take, seek out Ray Charles’s 1964 recording, which reworks the tune into a loose, soulful performance full of spoken asides and ad-libbed commentary on the lyric’s subject matter — a striking demonstration of how much a great interpreter can reshape a nearly forty-year-old standard while still honouring it.

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.