In search of the new standards

[destinytot]

Stop, Look, Listen

[Binyomin]

A related question: what is the most recently created sing to have become an undeniable standard already?

[pingu]

To make you feel my love

[pingu]

Don't know why

[destinytot]

?Going Out of My Head

[Stevebol]

[ColinO]

Simon and Garfunkel wrote some beautiful music. Here's a F Vignola take on Sound of Silence. There are other tunes they wrote that are so well known that I think they could be considered "Standards".

[Binyomin]

Let's ask it this way: when is the last time someone created a tune that you can imagine Jazz musicians calling at a jam session, not just one that could show up or did show up on a CD as a creative song choice?

[Papawooly]

Lots of great ideas here, folks, thanks. Reminded me even of some tunes I've done but forgotten about (like "We've Only Just Begun," what a great tune)

Like I said before, it all comes down to a good melody. Harmony can be twisted into a thousand different things...but with melody...you can't polish a turd.

Turds can be polished, however, they remain Turds!

Lately for my "Pop Jones" I am working also on a Paul Simon song:

"50 ways to leave your lover" (don't play it when Mrs. Papawooly is around)
"I don't want to be lonely tonight" (James Taylor.. Although mine is more Isley Bros rendition)
"Were all alone" (Boz Scaggs... Duet with Mrs. PW, and I am working on a chord melody version)

[EarlBrother]

maybe a Boz Scaggs or Van Morrison tune Into the mystic can be fun.

[Cunamara]

And we are still talking about songs that are 30-40-50 years old.

With my band I find myself increasingly bored with the repertoire of jazz, in terms of the Tin Pan Alley and Great Ameican Songbook tunes. For pete's sake, you go to hear any jazz band and 90% are playing the same 50 tunes and those tunes are older than anyone in the room! Does the world really need another rendition of "All The Things You Are?" I won't even solo on most of those tunes any more, I am so tired of hearing them that I don't want to prolong them at our gigs. I hardly go out to hear jazz any more because it's the same schtick over and over.

So there are two options: write new tunes or arrange current tunes. But how can we arrange most modern songs for jazz? Most have little in the way of either melody or harmonic interest. Composing a song is easy, composing a *good* song is hard. Composing good lyrics is even harder. I think repertoire is the biggest problem facing jazz, and our repertoire being basically stagnant for 50+ years is part of the loss of audience the music has suffered. Maybe we should be spending less time practicing modes of the harmonic minor scale and more time learning to write?

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

And we are still talking about songs that are 30-40-50 years old.

With my band I find myself increasingly bored with the repertoire of jazz, in terms of the Tin Pan Alley and Great Ameican Songbook tunes. For pete's sake, you go to hear any jazz band and 90% are playing the same 50 tunes and those tunes are older than anyone in the room! Does the world really need another rendition of "All The Things You Are?" I won't even solo on most of those tunes any more, I am so tired of hearing them that I don't want to prolong them at our gigs. I hardly go out to hear jazz any more because it's the same schtick over and over.

So there are two options: write new tunes or arrange current tunes. But how can we arrange most modern songs for jazz? Most have little in the way of either melody or harmonic interest. Composing a song is easy, composing a *good* song is hard. Composing good lyrics is even harder. I think repertoire is the biggest problem facing jazz, and our repertoire being basically stagnant for 50+ years is part of the loss of audience the music has suffered. Maybe we should be spending less time practicing modes of the harmonic minor scale and more time learning to write?

What if we compare this to classical music? When was the last time you heard someone say of an orchestral concert, "all those tunes were older than everyone in the hall!". On the contrary. Moreover, there's often a "new" piece that people have to sit through to get to the numbers they came to hear.

[rlrhett]

I don't get the complaint that pop songs are harmonically too "simple" to take a jazz treatment to. Isn't that the point? Take simple and make it interesting? Reharmonize, substitute, improvise?


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[mr. beaumont]

Sure, said it five times in this thread already...harmony''s easy to make more interesting, but a boring melody is a boring melody. Change that too much, it's a different song.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Sure, said it five times in this thread already...harmony''s easy to make more interesting, but a boring melody is a boring melody. Change that too much, it's a different song.

IMO much of modern pop music is about shifting basic harmony beneath a basically static melody. It's very groove oriented, whether pop or country etc, but the static melody has different tensions based on chord of the moment. Anyway, all of that results in songs which are basically meaningless without the vocal AND the harmony together.

Those older styles were very strong melodically and harmonically. There was a lot of work with on both ends. for much of the newer stuff, there's no context if you remove EITHER element IMO. There's actually some modern stuff I like, but you can't ride along in the car and sing it by yourself a cappella. It doesn't make sense.

[rictroll]

I know I'm taking this off topic, but the standards I think we need to be looking for are creativity and innovation

Not jazz and rock re-enactment. And enough with jazz interpretations of cowboy songs.

Its the 21st century! We walked on the moon once!

IMO

[Jonah]

Its the 21st century!

yeh... unfortunately

We walked on the moon once!

and came back very quickly

[R Neil]

yeh... unfortunately



and came back very quickly

Unfortunately. We'd just started the transition from seeing IF we could do it to actually doing something worthwhile in itself that last mission.

Silly, sad, and stupid to stop then. Ah well ... humans, you know ... sigh.

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

[Jonah]

Unfortunately. We'd just started the transition from seeing IF we could do it to actually doing something worthwhile in itself that last mission.

Silly, sad, and stupid to stop then. Ah well ... humans, you know ... sigh.

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

I will not quote the whole poem (we already derailedl the thread - my fault...)

so here's just the link Moon Landing – W. H. Auden | Universification

[rictroll]

[rictroll]

[rictroll]

[Jonah]

And what's so especially new creative in these songs it?

Please, understand me correctly - I personally do not care about novelty as it is at all... but you mentioned it first: let's go on, we're in XXI century etc.

They all sound great but...

you see the thing like jazz standards is a result or a powerful artistic flow, cultural shifts... it's an era, an epoch...

[rictroll]

I make no case for these particular songs, other than I think they are fun songs to play if you are looking for something different.

in the end it's what we bring to the song when we play it anyway.

[grahambop]

I've seen a few singers do Moondance by Van Morrison, maybe that's almost become a standard of sorts.