Come, Josephine In My Flying Machine (Up She Goes!): E-Z Play Today

It's the sound of a piano player in a 1910s theater, grinning at the audience while delivering this cheeky number about an airplane date. You get the exuberance and novelty of the era, the gentle irreverence, and that unmistakable early jazz idiom where melody and rhythm dance together.

Intermediate pianists who want to play repertoire with genuine historical and stylistic substance without confronting complex harmonies or dense voicings. Anyone programming a jazz or standards-focused recital will find this reliable and audience-friendly.

• Let the syncopation breathe. Don't rush the offbeat figures; the humor and swagger vanish if you push the tempo.
• Color the blue notes intentionally. Flatten the third or seventh just enough to signal the blues vernacular without sounding out of tune.
• The left hand carries the story in this arrangement. Keep the bass line conversational and rhythmically confident; it anchors the whole feel.

Include this in an American Popular Song unit to show students where jazz idioms entered the mainstream, or pair it on a recital with other standards from the same era. It works particularly well as a lighter moment in a program that also contains more classical repertoire.

• Reading and executing swing rhythms and syncopation
• Playing walking bass lines in the left hand
• Interpreting blue notes and microtonal inflection
• Understanding jazz comping and accompaniment textures
• Matching articulation and phrasing to early 20th-century popular music conventions