The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
  1. #1

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    This is kind of a spinoff from the recent solo gigs thread. Probably the best way to engage a casual audience is to play a tune they already know. A lot of your audience would likely be 20-30 somethings out on a date night.

    One way is to play jazz arrangements of Beatles and motown tunes; I could be wrong, but I don't think anybody escapes hearing those tunes a hundred times growing up. Alternatively, you could try to learn something current, but of course by definition that's a moving target. But what about actual jazz standards?

    It would most likely be a tune that was featured in a wildly successful kids or teen movie. One that comes to mind is Over the Rainbow. I am not sure, but I think Beyond the Sea might qualify, since it was in Finding Nemo. The Flintstones theme would work, too.

    Could an entire set list created from such songs?

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  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by nopedals
    This is kind of a spinoff from the recent solo gigs thread. Probably the best way to engage a casual audience is to play a tune they already know. A lot of your audience would likely be 20-30 somethings out on a date night.

    One way is to play jazz arrangements of Beatles and motown tunes; I could be wrong, but I don't think anybody escapes hearing those tunes a hundred times growing up. Alternatively, you could try to learn something current, but of course by definition that's a moving target. But what about actual jazz standards?

    It would most likely be a tune that was featured in a wildly successful kids or teen movie. One that comes to mind is Over the Rainbow. I am not sure, but I think Beyond the Sea might qualify, since it was in Finding Nemo. The Flintstones theme would work, too.

    Could an entire set list created from such songs?
    I recommend love type songs one hears at many wedding; songs like The Way You Look Tonight, where the Sinatra version has been played at wedding the last 40 or so years. Try to find a D.J. that plays at wedding and ask him about his "standards" play list.

    One can play riff based rock tunes; E.g. I play the Blister in the Sun riffs than morph that into Blues in the Closet (i.e. solo over that chord progression), then end with the Blister riffs. The riffs hook them in and as long as one doesn't solo too long and throws in some of those riffs as part of the solo, it goes over well since most people have heard that riff.

    Oh, and Brickhouse or The Wind Beneath my Wings, are NOT the type of songs I would recommend.

  4. #3

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    Many young folks (20-40 years old) have a real appreciation for melodic 60s hits by the Beatles and other performers of the time. Norwegian Wood, And I love Her, Eleanor Rigby and the like go over very well and have enough meat on the rhythmic and harmonic bones to work up some good improv once the tune's melody has been stated. Even the middle-of-the-road tunes of the era are now standards: Moon River, for instance, or Charade. While I'm not that familiar with the current oeuvre, I've heard some Jack Johnson, Bruno Mars and Jason Mraz tunes that might be applicable in a "smooth jazz", kind of presentation, although I tend to create basic backing tracks for real rocking tunes like Sultans of Swing or Can't Buy Me Love; all you need is a good drum program and an electric bass (or the patience to do an acoustic bass part on the keyboard and incorporate it). Even just a solid rhythm guitar part will give you something to play over rather than trying to solo like Joe Pass, which is a) kind of impossible and b) really impossible. In any event, standards of the 30s and 40s are not well known any more except at Senior facilities, unless from popular movies, as pointed out above.

    A sampling from my gig list: Light My Fire (Feliciano version), Crazy, Hotel California (huge hit every time), Runaway, Sway, Sweet Caroline, This Magic Moment, Walk On By, Under The Boardwalk, While My Guitar Gently Weeps (very popular, even instrumentally), and so on.

  5. #4

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    After listening to DOMi and JD Beck (19 and 16 respectively, at the time) rage through Giant Steps, etc. I think all bets are off on what younger folks are familiar with. After all, they've grown up with the entire history of recorded music at their fingertips.

  6. #5

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    I like working out arrangements of the kind of stuff you are talking about. I do a version of 'Walk on By' and similar stuff.
    I think that if you want people to listen to you, playing material they know and like helps.

  7. #6
    "Walk on By" or almost any other Burt Bacharach tune is a great choice from the Pop songbook. Barney Kessel recorded a nice version of "The Look of Love".
    But if you play "Hotel California", I ain't puttin' a dime in your tip jar. Perhaps it's the pseudo-deep lyrics and the cloying melody and the incessant chorus, but it's a litmus of musical taste for me. I have nothing against The Eagles or even Don Henley (saw him in concert once. OK it was a date and she had the tickets). And the song was indeed a big hit and remains very popular.
    In 2007, I was on my honeymoon in Corsica during Fete de la Musique on June 21, when every city and village in France and its territories celebrates with live music. Even with the windows closed in our hotel room, we could clearly hear the band down the street - a very nice ensemble with amplified acoustic guitars and solid vocals.
    At 1am, the band came back for an encore. They played "Hotel California" singing every word with a thick French accent: "Leeving eet upe at zee 'otel Calee-fornya..."
    I decided that night that there is no God. Or if there is one, he/she hates me.

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by TommyBrooklyn
    "Walk on By" or almost any other Burt Bacharach tune is a great choice from the Pop songbook. Barney Kessel recorded a nice version of "The Look of Love".
    But if you play "Hotel California", I ain't puttin' a dime in your tip jar. Perhaps it's the pseudo-deep lyrics and the cloying melody and the incessant chorus, but it's a litmus of musical taste for me. I have nothing against The Eagles or even Don Henley (saw him in concert once. OK it was a date and she had the tickets). And the song was indeed a big hit and remains very popular.
    In 2007, I was on my honeymoon in Corsica during Fete de la Musique on June 21, when every city and village in France and its territories celebrates with live music. Even with the windows closed in our hotel room, we could clearly hear the band down the street - a very nice ensemble with amplified acoustic guitars and solid vocals.
    At 1am, the band came back for an encore. They played "Hotel California" singing every word with a thick French accent: "Leeving eet upe at zee 'otel Calee-fornya..."
    I decided that night that there is no God. Or if there is one, he/she hates me.
    I can't stop laughing over this post. My wife and I had a pre-first-child-birth getaway to the Virgin Islands, and one night in the park next door a local pickup band started playing... you guessed it... Hotel California... except in a kind of reggae island-vibe sort of style. It was unendurable.

    I regained my faith in God, but not my liking for that song!