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Tbh I don’t think I have a particular opinion on what’s a standard and what isn’t. If I ask what a gig is and someone says ‘standards’ that usually means that GASB type of rep maybe with some 50s/60s jazz tunes. So maybe you are onto something in vernacular usage.
But look in any standard fake book collection and you’ll see a fair few tunes from all over. The Real Books have a lot of old trad rep in them, as well as fusion stuff, post modal, all sorts.
It bugs me when people write that off that older repertoire as ‘old trad stuff I hate’, just comes across as a bit dismissive tbh. Those tunes were played by bop players too…
While most modern players wouldn’t call Avalon, it’s more a reflection on their particular repertoire than anything else. Someone might even choose to learn it because they like the Sonny Stitt recording without realising it’s a ‘trad tune’.
Someone in jazz edu at some point had to sit down and made a decision about what to include in the basic standards lists their students would learn and there is some standardisation now internationally - a list that is dominated by stuff on the 50s Miles recordings (with his changes and keys), a side order of Trane and so on… it’s the basic rep that dominates worldwide so we can expect to be playing that stuff a lot on gigs with new players, and recent jazz grads but there are variations and players cultivate their own rep as they develop.
anyway it’s been established what the contents of the book is.Last edited by Christian Miller; 01-01-2023 at 05:55 PM.
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01-01-2023 05:31 PM
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Not unusual to have a term with no agreed-upon definition, and a long thread about what it means, or doesn't mean.
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I mentioned that I liked the original recordings of New Orleans jazz (I used the term "Dixieland", however). I find Jelly Roll Morton very interesting as a composer. I like the really early recordings, early Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Adrian Rollini, etc. I generally don't like the modern versions and British trad. jazz musicians like Humphrey Littleton, although he could certainly play. I'm not a fan of Mr. Acker Bilk, however I do like "Stranger on the Shore" a lot and play it frequently. So I'm certainly not dismissive of the repertoire (not that "Stranger on the Shore" is part of that repertoire). I sometimes play "Limehouse Blues" and I play quite a few songs from before 1920, which are not part of the trad or New Orleans jazz repertoire, as far as I know, like "You Made Me Love You", "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby (with a Dixie Melody)" and "Melancholy Baby". Since these songs are all in the public domain, I've posted lead sheets to them, and some others:
Songlist/public_domain_1.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub
Songlist/public_domain_2.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub
Songlist/public_domain_3.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub
Songlist/public_domain_4.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub
Songlist/public_domain_5.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub
https://github.com/lfinston/Songlist.../public_domain
Directory: https://github.com/lfinston/Songlist.../public_domain
I think "Ain't She Sweet?" and "Baby Face" are probably played in the context of trad/New Orleans jazz.
I'm not really a fan of jazz education. I think it's like classical music education; designed to exclude people. I played in the big band at my Junior High School and it was a pretty negative experience. It was all about contests. In the following summer, I went to a band camp and got put in the lowest group, because I was the worst pianist (admittedly). That also wasn't a good experience. The next year, in high school, I went to the try-out and didn't get taken for either band. Of course, there was the "good" big band and the "not-so-good" big band. About that time I drifted away from music and only started to play again when I was twenty and started to teach myself guitar.
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I think there's a way in which college jazz education makes jazz bands more accessible.
Back in the day you couldn't just register and get into some level of band - with instruction.
No RB. No youtube. Records were expensive (2.5 hours of minimum wage, as I recall). If you wanted to learn a song, you could wait for it to come on the radio or try to find an album with a few songs you wanted to learn. Single song sheet music was available for a dollar iirc. Oh, there was the old cardex fakebook, from the 40s, but, in the 60s people played more recent tunes quite often.
The way players did it, I think, was to be familiar with the songs from TV and radio and have the skill to find the notes and chords on the fly, the first time or two through the tune.
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
I live near the border between Lower Saxony and Hesse. There's a broadcaster (TV and radio) for LS and some other northern provinces and another for Hesse. Both have big bands. I think some of the other broadcasters do, too. You can actually earn a living as a musician in a big band in Germany. They get prominent guests. Carla Bley played with one of them, Oregon was in Hesse, etc. Have you ever heard of Bill Ramsey? In Germany, he was world-famous.Last edited by Laurence Finston; 01-02-2023 at 01:29 AM.
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In Germany, he was world-famous
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Oh, I forgot to mention: The Real Book was certainly around in about 1978, 1979. One of the music stores in town had it, although it was still illegal at that time. I think they had it out where you could see it and not under the counter. One of the talented kids I mentioned, the bass player in our junior high school big band, gave me some photocopies from his copy of it. Back then, I wasn't concerned about violating copyrights.
Wedding bands and groups like that had band books. People with good ears would transcribe things off the radio or records and they'd get passed around. Bronslaw Kaper, the composer of "Green Dolphin Street", got his start in America transcribing big band arrangements by ear so "minor" bands could, er, borrow arrangements from the big-name ones.
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What I recall from my early jazz gigs is that there was usually a piano player who may have had his own, handwritten, book. This is mid to late 60s.
Nobody else had a book. The regulars knew the tunes. The new guys needed good ears. If you didn't know a tune and got embarrassed, you'd find a way to learn it. I think the people who were most successful were the guys who spent their free time listening to the radio with their instrument in hand, figuring out every tune that came on. I recall young guys who seemed to know every tune in every key.
I do recall an exception where we (the rock band at a hotel) got drafted into playing what we called "society" music because the main band had a better NYE gig. We played for fox trot dancing (if I'm using that term correctly), mostly, from the cardex fake book.
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I always thought that was one of the most stupid things, trying to control dots on a piece of paper. Anyone with ears could get it off the record anyway.
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If only one of us had a copy of the Great American Songbook, we could discover what should be played.
I'll get my coat.
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Originally Posted by ragman1
I'm very glad that I know how to notate music. If I'm working out an arrangement for myself (I'm working on multi-track recordings using overdubbing), I don't usually write things down. If it's for other people, then it's essential.
It's great that we have so many technical aids now. I'm amazed at what Les Paul was able to do with the relatively primitive equipment of the time.
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Transposing from a lead sheet is easy. Transposing piano parts, like you have to do with so-called "art songs", is not, but it's not impossible. I don't have any occasion to use this, so I don't practice it. Playing from a score with all the transpositions for the transposing instruments, like conductors need to learn to do, is very hard. If I didn't know that people could do it, I would have said it wasn't humanly possible.
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For anyone who is interested in playing in different keys, I recommend Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord", volumes 1 and 2. After you've played through all of the pieces in either of the volumes, you will never fear a key signature again. I played them on the piano, but you can play them on the guitar; just not all the voices at the same time and not necessarily in the correct octave. In fact, with these two qualifications, you can play anything on the guitar.
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Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
if one can play the WTC on the guitar that would be an epic project. I’d be interested to know if anyone has actually worked on this - there’s usually someone somewhere.
The modern electric guitar allows more scope for this kind of thing - having the extra range is very useful as is the ability to play in closed positions comfortably for extended periods of time which is necessary for the more distant keys (and necessary for jazz with horns of course). A classical guitar transcription would probably need to transpose to be practicable.
That said I would say playing fugues of more than three voices would basically be impossible at any reasonable tempo, and even three voices might be pushing it. Some people play Bach Chorales on guitar as an exercise and that’s a challenge, let alone four voice imitative counterpoint. You’d need to arrange these sections as guitar duets or even ensembles. This is actually common with the two part inventions even.Last edited by Christian Miller; 01-02-2023 at 05:47 AM.
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Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
It’s a constant back and forth between what’s in, say, the Omnibook and what’s on the record when learning a Parker head for example. It isn’t helped by the fact that bird varies the way he play things from recording to recording, like he’s playing jazz or something. (Not ragging on Aebersold either, he’s only human, and the Omnibook is one hell of an achievement.)
Anyway that’s a separate epic thread lol. But most good players seem to use a mix of ear learning and checking out written sources.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Anyway that’s a separate epic thread lol. But most good players seem to use a mix of ear learning and checking out written sources.
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Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
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Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
I agree, except that some of the very best players can't read music. It seems that people who are very good at playing by ear sometimes have a kind of block about learning to read music. Maybe it's too slow for them or something.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
For some individual songs, I buy PDFs from Sheet Music Direct, which is Hal Leonard.
It's pretty rare for me to find a popular song of this era in a collection now that I don't already have. There are a few that I just can't find anywhere. I've bought books for the sake of one or two songs that I wanted and didn't already have. I've got tons of doublettes. I've kind of reached the end of this activity; there just isn't that much more.
Every so often, there's a surprise, like the 3 vol. edition of Walter Jurmann's songs from Schott. He and Bronislaw Kaper composed "All God's Children", among many other great songs. I love Walter Jurmann's music. No chord symbols in these books, though, so a lot of work, if I want to write them in.
To be honest, nobody needs to know all the songs from this era. They are somewhat stereotypical. There are quite a few jewels but also a lot of mediocre ones. The basic pattern AABA gets a little tedious after awhile. That may be why I'm an arranger rather than a composer: there are already more than enough songs in this style.
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I'm glad to see this question posted, I was wondering something similar a while ago when this book first came out.
Funny, the conversation seems to have veered off topic...
Perhaps we can circle back to the point.
Very cool that you can preview it on Amazon, I never realized that. It looks great!
Also very cool to hear from the actual editor here.
I'm curious, did any of the artists have any input on what was ultimately published? Or is it just transcribed by a third party?
And by the way, the word "standards" in the title doesn't inherently claim that these are ubiquitous pieces in everyone's repertoire.
I read it as saying that these relatively recent (modern) compositions set the standard, like the composers themselves do within their body of work.
And looking at the list of composers, that they set the bar high, well I don't think anyone would argue with that.
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Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
Buy Dick Hyman's Professional Chord Changes and Substitutions for 100 Tunes Every Musician Should Know Online at Low Prices in USA - Ergodebooks.com
he’s a real stickler for changes
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Originally Posted by oldHaus
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Originally Posted by oldHaus
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
New Standards - Berklee Press
Contents pages from amazon:
Elias Prinz -- young talent from Munich
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