I still get a big kick out of taking a melody and reharmonizing the chords to make it sound “modern” and fun to play in a jazz setting. With the Christmas season approaching, I always tend to brush up on the Christmas tunes for those few solo piano gigs that invariably come my way around the holiday season.

One tune that is pretty much a Christmas standard (and there are many as you well know) is Silent Night. Personally, I used to kind of dislike the tune because you hear it so much around Christmas time. Look in a fake book and you will almost always find just three chords (I, IV and V7) to accompany this famous melody. Very boring if you ask me. But….but by simply applying some jazz reharmonization to this melody, it can actually sound pretty good. The cool thing about reharmonization is that there is not just one way of playing a tune.

I did a little of my own reharmonization of Silent Night for myself, to play either as a solo piano piece, or with a trio or quartet around the holidays. If you take it at an easy waltz tempo, I think it will work well. Fun to blow over these changes too. You can view it and/or download it below. If you don’t prefer one of my chords, then make up your own. Its good practice, and you never know just what you’ll come up with.