When The Saints Go Marchin' In (ver. 1) by Jeff Guillen - Piano Sheets and Free Sheet Music

"When the Saints Go Marching In." often referred to as "The Saints," is a United States gospel hymn that has taken on certain aspects of folk music. The song is a slight modification (in 1927) of the similarly titled song "When the Saints are Marching In" from 1896 by Katharine Purvis (lyrics) and James Milton Black (music). Though it originated as a spiritual, today people are more likely to hear it played by a jazz band. A traditional use of the song is as a funeral march. In the funeral music tradition of New Orleans, Louisiana, often called the "jazz funeral", while accompanying the coffin to the cemetery, a band would play the tune as a dirge. On the way back from the interment, it would switch to the familiar upbeat "hot" or "Dixieland" style. While the tune is still heard as a slow spiritual number on rare occasions, from the mid-20th century it has been more commonly performed as a "hot" number. The number remains particularly associated with the city of New Orleans, to the extent that New Orleans' professional football team was named the New Orleans Saints, after the song. Both vocal and instrumental renditions of the song abound. Louis Armstrong was one of the first to make the tune into a nationally known pop-tune in the 1930s. Armstrong wrote that his sister told him she thought the secular performance style of the traditional church tune was inappropriate and irreligious. However, Armstrong was in a New Orleans tradition of turning church numbers into brass band and dance numbers that went back at least to Buddy Bolden's band at the very start of the 20th century. The tune was brought into the early rock and roll repertory by Fats Domino and (as "The Saint's Rock and Roll") by Bill Haley & His Comets.    Download this sheet!