In search of the new standards

[mr. beaumont]

So, hardly a new tune, bit I've been recently messing with Paul Simon''s "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright."

What pop tunes have you all been working on?

[AlsoRan]

For a feisty guy, you really like that pretty Jazz, don't you? This tells me something about what your soul yearns for.

Very nice (and no pick, just like you said months ago when you switched!).

[Doublea A]

So, hardly a new tune, bit I've been recently messing with Paul Simon''s "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright."

What pop tunes have you all been working on?

Don't know why by Norah Jones is my latest pop entry.
I'll post a video soon


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[matt.guitarteacher]

So, hardly a new tune, bit I've been recently messing with Paul Simon''s "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright."

What pop tunes have you all been working on?

Great tune. Thanks

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[R Neil]

So, hardly a new tune, bit I've been recently messing with Paul Simon''s "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright."

What pop tunes have you all been working on?

Nice. I've always loved that song, and knowing the meaning behind the lyrics ... Artie having been an architectural student at least in part; and at the time it was written he had told others of their recording staff that he was leaving music for at least a while, but not Paul. Paul found out from others, and wrote this as a goodbye. Rather a bittersweet tune and lyrics.

But just as music, it's beautiful. Your playing reminds me some of what Charlie Byrd did.

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

[cosmic gumbo]

I been thinking about checking into working on some tunes that are actually from this century, as challenging as that may seem.

[mr. beaumont]

For a feisty guy, you really like that pretty Jazz, don't you? This tells me something about what your soul yearns for.

Very nice (and no pick, just like you said months ago when you switched!).

Lol, I'm a peaceful romantic at heart. It's just all these asshats in the world who get in the way

I haven't given up the pick completely, but yeah...fingers only playing is fun.

Cosmic, you're a braver man than I. I hear guys like Mehldau pick newer tunes and they seem so obvious, like "duh, that'll make for a great jazz tune." But myself, I rarely can hear that quality in these tunes, mostly because so many of the melodies are so simple and repetitive...I mean, harmony you can mess with to your heart''s content...but truly interesting melodies are tough to come by.

Thanks everybody, keep the ideas comin.'

[matt.guitarteacher]

Nice. I've always loved that song, and knowing the meaning behind the lyrics ... Artie having been an architectural student at least in part; and at the time it was written he had told others of their recording staff that he was leaving music for at least a while, but not Paul. Paul found out from others, and wrote this as a goodbye. Rather a bittersweet tune and lyrics.

Thanks for this. Didn't know that part.

"All of those nights we harmonized til dawn..." now makes sense. Didn't know what it had to do with FLW.... :-)

[Binyomin]

How old is SLFLW? 47 years? Seems like an odd song for a thread about "new standards." (Wikipedia says Paul Desmond covered it, BTW.) Paul Simon's first solo album, a year or two later, had "Hobo Blues," in which he comps for Stephan Grapelli. Then again, maybe a "new standard" has to have some age on it. Otherwise it is just a new song. Where else would we look for "new standards" if we have the close to 50 years from 1970 on? Steely Dan? Stevie Wonder? A bunch of reasonably traditional Broadway Shows?

[FuseHead]

Every now and then I'll work out like an Adele song. I find her vocals translate well to guitar melody. But I always over do it and then realize I really failed in the task I set out to accomplish. By contrast I find Lady Gaga vocals do not translate very well to guitar at all. Or at least I am not good enough to make them translate anyways.

[mr. beaumont]

How old is SLFLW? 47 years? Seems like an odd song for a thread about "new standards." (Wikipedia says Paul Desmond covered it, BTW.) Paul Simon's first solo album, a year or two later, had "Hobo Blues," in which he comps for Stephan Grapelli. Then again, maybe a "new standard" has to have some age on it. Otherwise it is just a new song. Where else would we look for "new standards" if we have the close to 50 years from 1970 on? Steely Dan? Stevie Wonder? A bunch of reasonably traditional Broadway Shows?

I didn't necessarily mean new tunes, I meant, pop tunes that haven't been done in a jazz context very often, stuff that's good enough where it could become a "standard," i.e, widely played/called.

The tune could be 100 years old for all I care.

[goldenwave77]

Burt Bacharach and Hal David's stuff.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Hang around for the end, or at least skip to 3:20.

[Binyomin]

I didn't necessarily mean new tunes, I meant, pop tunes that haven't been done in a jazz context very often, stuff that's good enough where it could become a "standard," i.e, widely played/called.

The tune could be 100 years old for all I care.

I think I understood. Thing is, there are probably countless forgotten good songs from the eras that produced the standards we all know. Broadway Musicals of the older sort kept on being written after hits were mainly coming from pop groups. I think there were new Comden and Green songs in the 1970s. "Send in the Clowns" made it to standard or quasi-standard status, but aren't there a whole bunch of not very well-known Sondheim tunes out there? So you can play a good, suitable tune, wherever it comes from, or you can seek out that "standard" magic, in which the tune is both suitable for Jazz and very familiar to your audience. Some pop songwriters mastered something like the Tin Pan Alley craft: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Donald Fagen, Paul Simon, but not all the songs are in that style, and the non-hits are growing less well-known all the time.

[R Neil]

Thanks for this. Didn't know that part.

"All of those nights we harmonized til dawn..." now makes sense. Didn't know what it had to do with FLW.... :-)

It was all about "Artie & Paul" from high school into college/musical gigging. Every word. You start understanding their internal code words, look through "The Only Living Boy in New York" even "Bridge ... ".

The reason that after the break up, it sounded like a goodbye album ... was simple. Almost the whole album was a goodbye. By the time they recorded "Song for the asking" it was an open goodbye sung to each other ... and "Bye Bye Love" was a return to their earliest performances, a return to their beginning together. A ... bookend.

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

[mr. beaumont]

Uh, only if you want to take it there...jeez.

I wanted to talk about fucking songs.

[pkirk]

So, hardly a new tune, bit I've been recently messing with Paul Simon''s "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright."

What pop tunes have you all been working on?

I recently worked up a trio arrangement of "day tripper".

[R Neil]

Umm... are you trying to say something about 'Rhymin' Simon's' sexual preference that we don't know about..

?

Huh?

Two kids who grew up together and started their careers together ... no clue where your comments came from.

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

[R Neil]

I recently worked up a trio arrangement of "day tripper".

That would be interesting to hear a bit about. I'm trying to think of chording that ... not too successful. What do you do with it?

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

[snailspace]

I'm tellin' ya -- Disney princess movies. They're the musicals most younger people know these days. Any little girl who was seven years old when The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast came out is around 30-35 right now, and she'll put money in your tip jar if you play any tunes from either movie.

[Jonah]

I keep in mind doing some Gregory Porter's songs on guitar... they sound both fresh and very jazzy

[mr. beaumont]

I keep in mind doing some Gregory Porter's songs on guitar... they sound both fresh and very jazzy

That's a great idea, I love his stuff.

[Sam Sherry]

Alan Pasqua, Darek Oles & Peter Erskine:

[pkirk]

That would be interesting to hear a bit about. I'm trying to think of chording that ... not too successful. What do you do with it?

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

Here's a very poorly played version. I'm still fleshing it out, this version has too much of a "jam band" vibe to it.

[grahambop]

Dave Stryker did a CD of 70s pop tunes done as jazz vehicles, called '8-track', the clips I've heard from it sound good.