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As I'm sure you all know, many of the great jazz standards originated from various sources. Many were Broadway show tunes and many more were written by the jazz artists who made them famous.
Curiously, two of my favourite songs, both by Victor Young, originated as film scores - My Foolish Heart, from the film "My Foolish Heart", and Stella By Starlight from the movie "The Uninvited". It's interesting to hear the original film versions.
I wonder what songs from today's movies will become the jazz standards of tomorrow?
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11-26-2014 01:25 PM
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None... To become jazz standards of tommorow there should be jazz of tommorow... jazz book of standards is closed and sealed. It was a period staff ... connected with live practice
There are pop and rock songs covered by jazz players, but they do not become jazz standards anyway IMHO
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Golden age I'm afraid!.....Or, perhaps we just preserve it like classical music....Hey! that's what we're doing....L...
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Writing for movies is very different now and the BIG theme songs aren't a focus anymore. A few have become Pop hits but they generally are simpler tunes that don't have enough changes to interest/challenge Jazz players. Also people forget when they think about great old stuff about the ton's old crap that disappeared. What percent of old tunes actually became Standards of today. Like guitars people like to say the old stuff was so good, no the ones survived are good and others became fire wood.
Great melodies survive and there tunes from every decade that have survived. Real Jazz is about challenge and going for it and the tunes since the Golden Era just don't have what Jazzer's are looking for that's why they are still using old standards, contrafact of the standards to avoid licensing or just writing their own tunes.
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Relating to film, I observe that the music that gets nominated for Academy Awards is historically a reflection of the big music publishers flexing their muscles to place their best stuff in films that are fighting to get the biggest audiences, and if you research the list of composers and lyricists involved from year to year, you will see the most talented making big contributions. This stuff tends to go beyond pop fluff and have a bit more substance. Of course there are plenty of ditties that are exceptions, but film is always a source of relevant music, plenty of stuff for jazzers to cover.
What needs to be understood in the music economy is that when it comes to recording, all the money is in the publishing, so for the past 40 years most jazz artists make more money if they write their own material to record.
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I think that Randy Newman has a kind of movie song-writing talent.. and not only when he writes directly specially for movie
it is not only that he often uses jazzy or bluesy language, on the contrary I think he is quite original song writer - and namely song writer, because he usually writes both lyrics and music and often even performs himself.. and his every song has a kind of character, he is writing from someone else's point of you, a kind of story
At the same time he composes quite standard soundtracks in 'John Williams' - Wagnerian - Brucknerian style...
I think all the modern Hollywood soundtracks can fit one of the two categories: grand symphonic scores exploiting the advantages of late romantic symphony style - usually these soundtracks are more straight-ahead emotionally - if there is soldier's funeral they put in french horns, if love scene high violins
And mostly they involve 'action music' in it - like in tom and Jerry or Indiana Jones where music accompanies action step by step.
Often they include some ethnic elements - and usually without much care - they can use Armenian music for Irish or something like that - because this is a grand style and in grand style they think in grand notions, they do not care for details of expression...
And the other style is using minimalists' language - Glass himself established it with his soundtracks... that style should sound like more profound and subtle than the first one, but usually I find this to be fake depth, imitation of depth... but it works good for the movie.
I remember good films and good film songs from 90's or 00's... but I cannot remember any film where song would be a part of it as much as for example "Moon River' in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' or 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head' in 'Butch and Sundance'...
These songs are as substantial part of these pictures as Audrey Hepburn or Paul Newman...
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I don't know about today's movies, but On Green Dolphin Street is another movie I just watched a couple of years ago because of the "jazz tune" that came from it. Not a bad movie but certainly not a good one.
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Do you know about Randy Newman's family, the Newman's have a lot of history in music and film scoring. I remember meeting Randy's sister at a party before she off to Julliard as violin major. I believe Randy has a brother who plays guitar, but isn't that into music as the rest of the family.
Originally Posted by Jonah
Lionel Newman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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When movie makers started using scores, did they go after prominent composers, or did the prominent composers flock to them? (In those days, most movies were made in California while a lot of great songwriters / composers worked in New York...)
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Sure I know about his family musical background... to me Thomas Newman has sometimes recognizable style (only sometimes) but in general these Hollywood score are not difficult to learn to compose, I mean you should be a master anyway, but you do not have to be Tchaikowski or Wagner.Do you know about Randy Newman's family, the Newman's have a lot of history in music and film scoring. I remember meeting Randy's sister at a party before she off to Julliard as violin major. I believe Randy has a brother who plays guitar, but isn't that into music as the rest of the family.
And Randy with his songs did something special
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I had the same impression from 'Days of Wine and Roses'...I don't know about today's movies, but On Green Dolphin Street is another movie I just watched a couple of years ago because of the "jazz tune" that came from it. Not a bad movie but certainly not a good one.
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Another Mancini movie and great song is Two for the Road. Or Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffanies.
Last edited by henryrobinett; 11-28-2014 at 08:16 AM. Reason: typo
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Mancini- Pink Panther Theme
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Working on Two for the Road lately myself. There is a fabulous solo chord melody version on classical guitar on YT - if anyone wants I'll try to link as I'm pretty sure I have it in my "project song" playlist on YT.
I will soon create a transcription of this arrangement or something very close to it, perhaps over the weekend if time allows, using my 13-pin Godin to input the notes. I would not usually do a note for note transcription of anyone else's version, but this player's version verges on perfection. In other words it is hard not to voice this song in this key for solo guitar this way. Gorgeous arrangement - nearly inevitable, imo.
This particular arrangement is very playable as well. Everything lies perfectly under the hands.
JayLast edited by targuit; 11-28-2014 at 08:43 AM.
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Standards are what the players make them. Many people of this generation, apparently not of the sensibilities of this forum, are searching for and have made a new generation of standards, tunes that other musicians know as a matter of course. Wayne Shorter's compositions, ones attributed to Miles, an increasing number of musicians I know of are using tunes of Jimmy Webb, Beatles, tunes of Herbie Nichols, Bill Evans even songs from shows like Annie. If people in the circles of performing jazz musicians can call a tune, and everyone knows it, I believe it qualifies as a standard. There's no official board of standards and jazz is not dead yet.
There will always be people that believe there are "The Standards" and they ended after Cole Porter and Jimmy Van Heusen died, but there are constantly new tunes being introduced into working jazz communities of working musicians. I suppose there are those who's tastes and repertoire centres around tunes of the old broadway tunes, but the torch is being held by younger musicians, many whom are invisible to the mainstream (as bebop once was) and there are certainly standards among them. There is also a great emphasis and pride in having the knowledge to write your own tunes; it's a given with a lot of musicians, and often that's the only way to create a vehicle for an expanding vocabulary of compositional ideas. So using the so called "Standards" of their youth is not such a big part of the music.
I think new standards are out there, and it'll take time for them to emerge as such. It's not a gimmick that Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, Noah Preminger, Ben Monder or Bill Frisell freely turns to pop culture for improvisational vehicles. It's up to the rest of us to make them standards. That's the way it's been. I think the standards are out there.
I think the problem is that there aren't more players championing them. A lot more listeners than there are players. It's the players that set the Standards.
David
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David - thank you - a very insightful post - Bill
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Only if enough people are listening.... Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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I would disagree with David...
Standards' origin is in practice, in routine.. they came up together for an occasional jam and had to have some changes to play over.. so they took songs that everybody knew because these songs were everywhere on the radio in the shows in the movies... they did not have to rehears it... just came out there and played.
Later they began to use them to make a kind of 'club' - you should have know these songs to be in. That is when it was established as 'standard'.
It was possible because pop music of those days was close to jazz in many aspects - they belonged to the same time and culture... they were different kids of the same time, they could exchange ideas, communicate... it was natural process, the same players were involved in both.
But in 50s they went in different ways - jazz gradually into status 'serious music' - and pop developed new languge...
And there is just no practical need for new jazz standards - when they are our for a jam they want to play jazz language, so they pick standards of jazz days, not pop or rock...
Modern jazz covers of pop and rock songs has absolutely different origin behind it... it is a conceptual thing now, they do it to find (as they might think) new dimension, new approach, to surprise themseves or audience, to have new experience etc.
They will not become standards simply because they become new original compositions.
Actually new players do not jam in new styles - they play new style in their personal programs with their groups... and in open jams there is even no idea to play new standards, so they just do not need them.
I think it is the matter of style... there are limits, it is just no more jazz... good music maybe, but no more jazz...
Take Metheny covering Alfie and Bill Evans or Barney Kessel playing the same song - it is just absolutely different style of music already...
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Well Jonah, you're speaking as if the jazz community were one unified entity, one body in agreement over what tunes are standards, what lexicon, syntax and semantic content constitutes jazz, even what IS jazz. There's one fundamental assumption that will take our perspectives in very different directions.
See, I don't see the field of improvisational music as being unified anymore, and though the river of jazz at bebop and through post Ellington did have a lot to bind itself together, even to be seen as kin throughout the jazz spectrum, that's no longer the case. The river split long ago. European jazz communities no longer need American musicians to justify their legitimacy. Musicians with unquestionable jazz pedigrees are combining influences to a degree that some refuse to acknowledge them (hip hop infused or free jazz ensembles) as legitimate jazz. Some won't even consider what they do as complying with their own definitions of jazz, yet their audiences still think of it as jazz.
In this diaspora of creative and evolutionary music, the origins in the jazz river are firmly acknowledged, but it would seem that among performing musicians, it's more important to do what they do, do it with individual integrity and be true to an improvisational aesthetic than it is to consider how standards have changed.
I'm saying that you'll find deep and flowing tributaries that consider the music of Ornette standard fare. You're expected to know it. In that community of jazz practitioners, there are new standards. In another tributary you'll find those that phrase in swinging eighth note linearity, and they might play Stella By Starlight every night, and not even be aware of what Ornette has to offer. Both of these are part of the contemporary jazz world today. I don't believe either can speak for the whole field of jazz to say what or what is not legitimate. If you're real about the music, you fight for legitimacy every night, by your own standards. The music speaks for itself. Labels are a far secondary concern.
When I'm playing with people I know, we pretty much agree on what we should know. It's different from what I'd have been expected to know 30 years ago. That's why I think standards change.
David
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David,
of course what I say is generalization, I could not avoid it... and I understand what you mean. At least I think I understand.
Maybe you are right and I just see some other part of modern jazz community... but anyway I am not sure I still can call it a jazz... I feel that now is the period when we might feel connection of the modern 'jazz' styles with jazz origins, but later generations probably will separate it completely.
As now we distindctly see the difference between baroque and classical period... but probaly for people of pre-Mozart era this of a kind of 'fusion'
Anyway, maybe to not to go into woods arguments we could try to see what actually 'standard' is? What makes it so special for jazz" I think 'standard' is unique jazz notion, that came from very special need of jazz conmmunity that I mentioned above. I think now they jazz do not need new ones. Or do they?
And also there is what is called Great Americam Songbook - and these books relate.. but still are not the same. How do they relate?
Actually if we look into the records of 30s - Prez, Hawk, Charlies Christian etc. - we'll find only few songs that are now in the jazz books... they often played swing dance hits, and most of the standards came into the book later, why? Is this strongly connected with jazz tradition where you become an author is you play it like you do, not composed it... in general it is Americam pop tradition.. if we take Beatles or ROlling Stones songs they are unique in their own performance, but most American pop players they care more about having unique style in general to cover with it any other song... it is connected?
You mentioned Europe. Is jazz strongly connected with American culture in certain period?
Excuse me for putting now here mostly quaetions, but I think it may be important to consider it also....
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Standards became so in times when Jazz was the one of only 2, or 3 available pop genres. Players who played them were the top of the pops star entertainers, and tunes they played were the greatest hits of the moment. That's why everybody wanted to play them. That's why they became standards.
When the greats were picking a preexisting tune to change and play, they did not pick the best, or the most interesting. They were picking what was stack in their heads, or, if there was nothing they whistled arround on that day, they'd pick the most obscure and cheap, the most suitable and the most easy to mungle with.
Regarding the present, if you want to remain the discusssion in the realm of jazz, than ok, maybe some Jazz scholars are making new standard jazz repertoire, but that is not what "standards" used to be.
For normal people, those just playing their instruments for fun and possible profit, that repertoire is completely irrelevant. When they meet and need chords to jam over, it's usually a modal vamp. They can not memorize and play the simplest 4 chord pop song in a form. Of course, they can fire plethora of monster licks from tabs and youtube. Bassists can't play simple 12 bar boogie, but can slap in counter 1/32nds like nothing ....
Than a Jazz scholar comes to join above mentioned jam, improvises licks by oldfashioned tools applicable to Autumn leaves, so it all sounds in perfect sync and harmony, all beautifull sounds of good tempered instruments, all musicians could listen and think, "man, they play really good", and not a speck of half listenable music comes out for the evening. Friends come to hear it once, girlfriends twice, and nobody ever again.
How can it become standard if nobody listens to it? Why would anybody else play it?
In the world of Jazz scholars they may have some "new" standards, where they listen to each other, for whatever reason.
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I think they picked the tunes that had best melodies and changes. Just so happened that a lot of popular music of the time was written by world-class composers who were constantly trying to one up the last great tune in terms of interesting melody and changes. And a lot of it actually swung in its original form. Originally Posted by Vladan
Eventually pop music turned more to things like rock 'n roll , and I'd imagine that's where the real departure from the practice of playing popular music as standards slowed down. Rock 'n roll and related genres had more of a focus on simplicity and groove etc. They're not hoity-toity, fancy music written by composers . A lot of it's written by singer songwriters. . Normal folks. Simple changes. More about a groove and a feel than complex changes or melody. it's naturally not as much the kind of thing to play jazz over
Of course I'm not basing this on anything other then my own assumptions .Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 11-29-2014 at 10:02 AM.
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Really interesting discussion! I really can see so many valid points of view. I really love seeing that this particular genre of music can have such thoughtful discussions about a central concept: the standard. I'll just say it's remarkable that we can talk the talk and when it comes time, get up there and walk the walk. I don't often see this quality of conversation in other genres of music, in informed words or on the bandstand.
...now to get back to the fretboard...
David
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I think the biggest change lies with repertoire. That is, for many fields (-bluegrass and Gypsy jazz make great examples, but blues, folk, and swing do too) the way one displayed one's talent was through performing well a piece the audience knew. (This is how they could know you were doing it well, if you were doing a fairly straightforward version, or taking it somewhere new, as Miles did with many of the standards he recorded.) We see this with singers today on the televised talent shows.)
But when bands were expected to write their own material, the emphasis switched to recordings. (For many, a song IS the recording they know. It's like a movie as opposed to a play. Standards are more like good plays: solid material but you've got to sell your performance of it to the crowd.)
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That's a great point. It's a frame of reference. That repertoire gives you something to measure against. I love me some Keith Jarrett standards trio from time to time. Love the way they can boil down a standard and do something really different in feel using the structure of an old tune. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
It has different "meaning" than it would if it were just an original tune, because of the context of the original and the way others have played it .
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