Anything Goes: Lead Sheet / Fake Book

Anything Goes captures Porter at his most inventive harmonically while staying completely accessible. The melody sits naturally in the voice, the chord changes reward musicians who dig into jazz comping, and it's the kind of standard that works equally well in a concert setting or as a teaching tool for understanding song form and reharmonization.

Bright, conversational, and endlessly clever. Porter's melody bounces with optimism while the harmonies keep you engaged, never letting the ear settle into predictability. It feels like a song written by someone who understood both popular appeal and musical craft.

Piano students exploring jazz standards, singers building a repertoire of American songbook classics, and ensembles looking for a flexible piece that works in combo settings or as a featured number in a larger production.

• Pay attention to Porter's chromatic movement in the changes; these aren't just functional chords, and observing the voice leading prevents the performance from feeling generic.
• Anchor the rhythm section on the & of beat 4 in spots where Porter stacks unexpected harmonies; it keeps the ensemble grounded when the harmony gets sophisticated.
• Treat the repeated phrases as opportunities to vary your interpretation across choruses rather than playing them identically each time.

Pair this with other Porter standards to explore how his compositional voice evolved, or feature a vocalist with a jazz ensemble to demonstrate how a strong melody can anchor sophisticated harmonic improvisation. It also works well in a retrospective on Great American Songbook composers.

• Interpreting jazz changes and voice leading
• Singing through eighth-note rhythms with conversational phrasing
• Chord-scale relationships in comping
• Song form recognition and repetition with variation