Likes: 
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Yeah, really good interview. Thanks Christian for the link.
I'm not too crazy about the jazz content of Rick Beato videos and the way he covers them. But I have to give it to him, he is as good an interviewer as it gets. His questions, the way he interacts with Gary Burton, his laid back vibe was just perfect. Not just the questions he asks but questions he does not ask shows good judgement. Classy.Last edited by Tal_175; 06-01-2019 at 10:30 PM.
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06-01-2019 09:16 AM
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Karl Latham is trying... I like it!
Day Tripper
Cinnamon Girl
Riders On The Storm
Taxman
Us And Them
Low Rider
Had To Cry Today
Tomorrow Never Knows"Bent my ear to hear the tune and closed my eyes to see."
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Interesting definition on new people have
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I tried Cinnamon Girl. It lacked everything I like about the original. Besides, there is a fine line between instrumental version and lobby music.
Originally Posted by pauln
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Why doesn't anybody play the jazz standards anymore that actually preceded the Great American Song Book? When did you last hear „Rhythm King“, „Coal Black Shine“, „Long, Deep and Wide“, "Up jumped you with Love“, "Who (Stole My Heart Away)", "The Sheik of Araby", "San", or even "Sweet Georgia Brown" by any other than a Dixie band?
See. Repertoire seems to be a function of style.
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The only reason tradders play that stuff is to get one over on the filthy modernists. They’d all rather be playing GASB tunes once the boppers are out the way. Originally Posted by docsteve
SWB works great in 7.
San is a cool tune.
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Actually in seriousness and as someone who does know early jazz specialists - a friend of mine has completed recording the Jelly Roll Morton ouvre - an interesting thing is that the authentic popular music of the 1920's can be pretty unfamiliar to a modern audience. People are going to recognise things like Ain't Misbehaving but beyond that there are many tunes that have just dropped out of rep. Not that many people actually listen to 20s music except devotees....
Even the UK trad jazz fans actually want the '50s version - Midnight in Moscow etc - not the real, recreated thing.
Which is where the seemingly endless Prohibition parties are funny, because the punters never want 20s music... maybe for 5 minutes. Then they want something much more like this:
(Gunhild BTW is a legit actual early jazz stylist)
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I think this is right. I would add "large" and aslo note that lots of "jazz standards" appeal to people who are not primarily jazz fans. A standard should have appeal beyond the cognescenti. Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
"Learn the repertoire. It’s all in the songs. If you learn 200 songs, you will have no problem improvising."
Frank Vignola
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Bobby Broom
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This reads like a 'jazz is for jazz musicians' thread. Given the current size of the jazz audience I guess that may be about it. Putting that aside for the moment..
There have been several albums based on Beatles songs. I like DiMeola's "All Your Life" and Connie Evingson's "Let It Be Jazz". And there is a lot going on in Joni Mitchell tunes. Herbie Hancock got a mainstream Grammy Album of the Year for "River: The Joni Letters". Of course, even that music is old now.
There is a Gershwin quote: "True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time". Jazz has to adapt to current music. As awful as many may find current music to be. That may mean sifting through the ashes of the last decade and making arrangements people want to hear. It may mean innovation and creation. Not just blowing over stuff nobody cares about any more.Hell is full of musical amateurs - George Bernard Shaw
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I was looking at a Jerry Coker book the other day ("Hearin' the Changes" IIRC) and two tunes he mentioned were by Billy Joel: "Just The Way You Are" and "New York State of Mind."
Not new, but interesting in that they are pop songs that some jazz musicians play. (Donald Fagen has written his share of these too.)"Learn the repertoire. It’s all in the songs. If you learn 200 songs, you will have no problem improvising."
Frank Vignola
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If a musician thinks he plays "Jazz", but the audience thinks he plays something else...who's right and does it matter? Would it depend on the musician's relationship with the audience? Are listeners entitled to have reasonable expectations? When a Jazz musician knows his standards he knows what's Jazz and what's not. He's done his homework and stands on a solid foundation. He can then expand on that legacy and play jazz no one heard before. Originally Posted by Spook410
-What If the audience think that a musician plays Jazz, but the musician is confident he's playing something else?
It's just a matter of expectations. If you care, If you have a contract with the audience.
As much as I like Gershwin, he never had monopoly to define what's "true music" and what's not. I consider his music true, even though it hardly reflects our time.
A long time ago "Jazz" was "pop". If you want to make and play contemporary pop, old pop, Rock or R&B, great. -Why would you have to call it Jazz?
-Why do people play jazz if they don't like it? (I can play hip-hop on my archtop if that's my thing, but it obviously won't be jazz. And it won't be Jazz just because it's unplugged or instrumental or becasue there are real instruments.)
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I'd have thought a 'standard' was a tune of long-established popularity. So when we say 'new' standard how long must it have been around to qualify? Is, say, Yesterday a standard?
Is Happy Birthday a standard???
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I think of a standard as a song that musicians will know and could be expected to play without much help.
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To get back to the OP question...
Originally "Jazz" wasn't a separate genre of music. It was a style of playing that was imposed on popular songs. There were no 'jazz' songs; only songs that had been 'jazzed up'. And it was often considered by critics as an obnoxious thing to do to a perfectly good song. Jazz players were less concerned with a beautiful execution of a great song than their own extrapolation of it, and so developed a style of playing the head of the tune as it was written and getting it out of the way as quickly as possible, in order to get to the good part: Extended improvisations over the changes.
There are probably other examples, but I'll single out Coleman Hawkins' version of Johnny Green's Body and Soul. His version mostly ignored the melody of the song and instead imposed vertical (change-based) improvisation over the changes, and his version of the tune became more popular than the original, much to Johnny Greene's chagrin. I'll bet many people here are more familiar with his 'melody' than Greene's original one, and some who probably think Hawkins' improv IS the original melody.
The reason this particular song is important is because it was a statement that, for jazz players, the song itself was less significant, less important than their improvisations were. HUGE change, and an unprecedented one. As 'jazz' musicians stared composing 'jazz' songs, the focus was not on songwriting in the conventional, historical sense, but on crafting interesting frameworks to improvise over. Composition became far less important than execution.
If you look at a jazz standard like "Autumn in New York", and compare it to a jazz standard like "So What" you can observe the movement that happened in 'jazz' composition as a result of the sea-change where improvisation -what a player did with a song- became more important than the song itself. "Autumn in New York" is a beautiful, expertly crafted song that stands on it's own no matter how it is played stylistically, because it's a beautiful song. "So What" is just a lick -barely a lick- over changes, and was never intended to be anything more than a vehicle for improvisation. It does not stand on it's own as a beautiful song. Without improv, it's simplistic and boring. You can go through the Real Book and see all those standards fall into two distinct categories: Songs written to be songs, and songs primarily intended as improv vehicles.
A good song can be a good vehicle for improv, but a good vehicle for improv isn't automatically a good song.
For a while audiences went along with this, but as jazz 'songs' became less and less song-like, and their purpose, their reason to exist was not to be a good song but simply a good vehicle, and new 'jazz songs' increasingly became more obtuse and the melodies more abstract, "jazz"; now a separate musical genre, was well on it's way to being something akin to papers on particle physics; Scholarly and deep, but also increasingly difficult for a person not intimately familiar with the subject to appreciate.
Jazz went from being an illegitimate interpretive style, to it's own musical genre, to a musical orthodoxy which can now be studied academically alongside classical music at the Doctorate level. If Jazz Studies students spent more time studying great songwriting, and a lot less time scrutinizing, analyzing and emulating the improvisations of The Great Jazz Icons of Yesteryear, there might be a different understanding of why jazz is no longer popular music.
Just my opinion....Last edited by Rhythmisking; 06-13-2019 at 07:35 PM. Reason: typos
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Like Happy Birthday :-) Originally Posted by Litterick
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Originally Posted by Rhythmisking
Now that was excellent. Quite right. I do like things that make sense.
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Like "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC, "Mustang Sally" or "Sweet Home Alabama" etc? All cover-band standards. Originally Posted by Litterick
When somebody plays Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark", you'll never hear them being described as a cover band.
Or maybe by "without much help" you mean "could be played solo on a piano or a guitar without vocals"? In that case I agree. It's one of several criterias for a "Jazz standard"
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Agreed 100% Originally Posted by Rhythmisking
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Yeah I agree with this analysis except historically you are not accurate. Originally Posted by Rhythmisking
There were originally such things as jazz tunes and jazz composers. Jelly Roll Morton wrote quite a few of them for instance. Of course today we tend to start with Louis Armstrong’s late 20s revolution of playing on pop songs because not many professional jazz musicians will be expected to know involved march form early jazz tunes like, say, High Society, King Porter Stomp or Fidgety Feet unless they are trad or early jazz specialists.
So composition was always part of the tradition. More familiar to most jazzers is of course Ellington. The tradition of writing jazz originals can be found throughout the swing era and also of course, the bop era and beyond.
However I do feel that what this era had was jazz compositions that fundamentally set up a dialog with the popular music of the time, if not forming a part of it. Swing era tunes were often bluesy riff tunes, bop tunes were sardonic and subversive takes on popular swing jam session tunes (drawn from popular music) and so on...
Contemporary jazz musicians have done this - EST spring mind as a band that referenced the rock and dance music of the time without actually playing pop tunes. And then there are bands like Knower who seem to straddle genres and play both reworked covers and originals.
So this whole jazz is a verb not a noun thing is a little ahistorical. It’s a useful perspective though I think.
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Absolutely. The pseudo-historical timeline I laid out wasn't intended to be absolute or even historically accurate, but to describe a general movement through time of the relationship of jazz players and audiences and the often overlooked/underappreciated role of composition. Originally Posted by christianm77
There was a time period where jazz was popular, and jazz music was a part of popular music. But my point is that compositions such as the Ellington/Strayhorn tunes; indisputably "jazz songs", were first and foremost beautiful compositions. The compositional intention was primarily to create a beautiful song, not quickly dash off a framework to blow over with melody almost as an afterthought.
Great iconic jazz musicians from the bop era forward were and are celebrated (and studied) for their improvisations first, and their compositions second -if at all. Certainly exceptions (Ellington) abound; no doubt. But I'm of the opinion that the evolution of jazz as a genre ended up in the weeds (as far as it being popular music) when the importance of song composition fell away under the dazzle and sparkle of expertly executed vertical improvisation.
I believe a large part of the reason iconic masters such as Parker, Hawkins, Young, etc are perceived as being as great as they are is because their work took place at the overlap of horizontal and vertical improv styles. They grew up and were influenced by players whose improvisations were based on a song's melody and tended to be thematic melody-like lines that moved through changes. As they started formulating their lines referencing the changes more strongly, they still had the foundation of the primacy of a cohesive melodic thread guiding them. As newer, contemporary players study them, they concentrate largely on the chord/scale elements of their playing and also view their own improvisation primarily in terms of scalar relationships to chords, and my assumption is that this is the emphasis of what is generally taught academically in jazz studies: Use the correct patterns over the individual chords as quickly and accurately as possible and bingo, you're playing jazz!
There's a quote I really like from Herb Alpert in the June issue of Jazz Times. He's talking about his foundation and the selection process for giving out grants. He says "There are two kinds of musicians: first, the guys who play the right notes, who know where they're going and are very precise. You listen to them and you stare out the window because nothing's really happening.Then there are those other guys who are searching for the right notes. The artists we choose are not the beat of the week; they're the ones who took the road less traveled."
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Jazz became about chord charts, rather than songs. Originally Posted by Rhythmisking
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Well put, I think you are spot on. Originally Posted by Rhythmisking
Maybe we could highlight the relationship "composition" vs "execution".
I've said it before; the best composer is seldom the best instrumentalist even though there are exceptions (or used to be exceptions). The obvious reason being time. We tend to improve in the fields we practice. The more time I spend composing, the less time I have left to practice certain techniques. Also, the more time a person practice scales and patterns, the less time is left to learn new songs or write new songs. The more time I play with the DAW, mixing sounds, the better I become at certain elements of production, but the less time is left for making music as opposed to sound. It's gone so far, people can no longer distinguish sound from music. And people are producing sounds without having any instrument skills. State of the art is actually more about finding new sounds, than about writing music. And as we've already talked about in this thread; A sound can't be a standard (at least not in the context of this thread, but quite possibly in a different meaning).
For a long, long time, the music industry has relied on specialized roles for different tasks. It was practically never a one man show. A musician has to find his niche, do his thing; Compose, arrange, play, produce etc. If I spread myself to thin, I may not get the edge required, still each and everyone is wearing all these different hats on and off...It helps us see the bigger picture. And I obviously have to develop instrument skills and learn music written by others and study theory in order to develop my own writing.
Now what if the composer don't get paid for intellectual property? What if the only way to make a living is to execute, to perform on stage or to become some demon producer? What if composition of popular music in the 21st century is synonymous to production, where the producer is using seeds from random singer song writers to get embryos for hooks and where the ultimate goal is to produce a sound?
What If I have to run my own independent label and wear all hats?...Then there won't be any new standards.Last edited by JCat; 06-15-2019 at 06:11 AM.
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A covers band attempts to recreate the sound the original band makes on the record. Playing a new solo or introducing new instruments probably would not be accepted by the audience, which would expect fidelity to the original. Highway to Hell is guitar music; play it on another instrument at your peril. Skylark, first published as sheet music, has had a long life independent of any one recording: Wikipedia lists twenty-nine 'charted versions'. A musician could be expected to play this song because it is part of the repertoire, it is relatively simple and it does not require specific instruments. Originally Posted by JCat
I am not sure whether "could be played solo on a piano or a guitar without vocals" is one of the criteria for a jazz standard. I expect all standards could be played solo on a piano or guitar without vocals, but equally they could be played on a bassoon or a harp, or sung in Japanese or Czech. Their adaptability helps make them standards, but does not guarantee their success. Other songs, which were just as adaptable, did not catch on.
Besides, I do not think criteria were ever established. Songs became standards because many people played them. They were published in fake books and recorded by stars, which encouraged more people to play them. Most came from Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, Hollywood or the Brill Building. Almost all are American. I doubt whether Autumn Leaves, (written by Joseph Kosma with original lyrics by Jacques Prévert as Les Feuilles mortes for a 1946 French film, Les Portes de la nuit) would have become a standard, had neither Johnny Mercer written lyrics in English, nor Bing Crosby recorded Mercer's version (Roger Williams recorded a 1955 piano version, the only piano instrumental to reach number one on the Billboard chart, so it also meets your rule).
On Radio New Zealand National, right now, Karen Carpenter is singing Ticket to Ride, accompanied by her brother and an orchestra, one of those covers which is very different from the original and so challenges my theory of standards.
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Well isn’t that basically what Mark Ronson did with Version and everyone flipped out?
Yeah the progression from song to sound design, sums it up.
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That is indeed a great example. Huge record and Hawkins didn't play the melody straight at all. (He ignored the orchestra behind him too!) But Coleman Hawkins was one of THE greats and not even he was capable of this great a performance every time out. Originally Posted by Rhythmisking
I think it was a mistake for most jazz players to think that people would be more interested in their handling of the changes of a standard---"There Will Never Be Another You", ATTYA, whatever---than they would be in hearing the tune played with feeling, followed by a solo that keep that developed that feeling without losing it.
Here is the seminal Hawkins recording, followed by a straighter take from Monty Alexander, Herb Ellis, and Ray Brown.
"Learn the repertoire. It’s all in the songs. If you learn 200 songs, you will have no problem improvising."
Frank Vignola
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Most that frequent this forum probably share a common view of what a jazz standard is. They reside in our Real Books and some even know which ones tend to be called. That's if you live in a very large city where there are hidden venues where this still has any relevance.
I'm more interested in the question of why jazz is not obviously evolving. As the OP asked.. why do jazz players persist in a repertoire that matters to such a small audience? There is a musical space for performers and listeners that resides beyond rock and blues bands. Is it the arrogance of jazz musicians? The need for jazz musicians to perform without rehearsal or arrangements so it's standards or nothing? Venues that eschew anything but classic rock and country bands? I don't think musicianship is dead. Nor is music creativity. And I do think millennial's want to hear it. Musical creativity and jazz improvisation should be commonplace even outside of NYC and LA.
Some seem to think that if music involves the jazz musician, it must involve the jazz standard. But as a quick scan of the local paper's entertainment section reveals, there isn't much out there. So if there's not a sustainable market for jazz standards why are we not adapting by applying jazz skills and sensibilities in a way that engages our potential audience?Hell is full of musical amateurs - George Bernard Shaw
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I have long bemoaned the fact that the jazz repertoire has not evolved. I don't think it's because jazzed don't want to add new material. I have seen creative additions on individual albums since the 1980's. But they don't get traction with the jazz community because there is no mainstream outlet that is common to most players. In the 1950s New York, there was jazz radio and an big scene where all the style setters moved in a common pool. Nothing like that exists today. So it's hard for a new tune to be universally adopted because it is virtually impossible to spread the gospel.
Yes, there has been Billy Joel's Just the Way You Are and then That's the Tme I Feel Like Making Love have more or less made it onto the standard list, but those are outliers. Jazz drew in the past from pop radio. Face it, most pop radio today does not lend itself to improvisation over chord changes. On the other hand, there has been a LOT of music released over the last 40 years and one would think that there are some gems in that pool. I would think that some Nirvana stuff could be used by creative jazzers. Arturo Sandoval released a record of modern Americana with Al Green and Miami Sound Machine tunes on it.
So my take is that jazzers really need to look to music they normally don't listen to so that they can refresh the idiom. Who knows what might be found in the Christina Aguilera or Link in Park catalogs?
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You got my point regarding the cover band standards, and I think you're right about "playing solo"; I would accept most chord playing instruments (even a Czech barbershop quarted)... but I'm a bit ambivalent about the bassoon... I'm afraid Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We say Goodbye" on solo Bassoon won't fly, but I would be thrilled hearing an attempt on "Four Brothers" Originally Posted by Litterick
I'm listening to Karen Carpenter's version of the Beatles' "Ticket To Ride" right now, beautiful arrangement and performance raised above the cover clichés. The Beatles' catalogue is great, plenty of Beatles standards that will still be played in 50 years. And it can be played on a solo archtop, and "Yellow Submarine" even on solo Bassoon. It's not Jazz though (if that would be of any importance).
It's just a guess, but don't you think guitar music runs in the veins of most people frequenting this forum, that most of us started out playing guitar music? I have played rock, blues, soul and funk and I like it. And many, many listeners like it. That's my generation, my back yard. But I have also played and listened to Jazz since childhood because I like it. Classical music too.
Ever since the days of Bill Haley & the Comets, teenagers have been the target for pop production. The funny thing is that many people that grew up listening to AC/DC, still listen to the same music 40+ years later. For as long as I remember, artists have kept on servicing a loyal fan base, growing old with the fans, playing the same music year after year. There's just this little problem with live arena rock; one needs to fill an arena....
When the visual image of an act gets too much attention, does the actual music still speak to the audience? If the power of the music equals the length of the hair cut, what is the guitarist supposed to do when he develops the look of Joe Pass or Jim Hall? He could wear the usual wig or a bandana, but he doesn't have to play Jazz if he doesn't like it.
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I do rearrangements of the following Beatles tunes (or they're on my to do list) in a soul jazz vein, think Nat Adderly Work Song or Turrentine:
Can't buy me Love in slow straight 8the
Oh Darlin
Come together
Something
Yesterday (see Ray Charles version, and a great chord change for a horn player)
All My Lovin' (contains a chord change descending in 3rds just not found in jazz tunes)
Because
Here there and Everywhere (great in an organ trio)
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite (on my list to arrange)
Cry Baby Cry (imagine Earl Klugh or Metheny playing it)
Geo. Benson did A Day In the Life
Don't Let Me Down (imagine King Curtis rocking this one)
Eleanor Rigby
Fixing a Home
Golden Slumbers
Got to Get you into my Life
I Want You (She's so Heavy) pure soul jazz
Rocky Racoon (awaiting an big band arrangements)
Glass Onion
Good day Sunshine
Sexy Sadie
You Never Give Me Your Money
In My Life
She's Leaving Home
I'm so tired
The catalog is like a mini Real book!Last edited by benrosow; 06-16-2019 at 07:28 AM. Reason: Typo
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Add: George Benson's THE OTHER SIDE OF ABBEY ROAD on CTI.
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A great point and I fall in that trap of thinking sometimes. We think that way because so much of the jazz repertoire came from covering pop songs. In the '30s to '50s, ALL performers covered poptunes because, just like today, that's what their audiences wanted to hear. You don't think people didn't come up to Dizzy and say, "Can you play Buckle Down Win Sockie?" From the birth of jazz, once it went uptown, jazz players have had to balance their artistic goals vs the reality of their audiences. Do we really think a 1928 audience was more sophisticated or appreciated the improvisation of the day any more than today? Ellington was paddling upstream right out of the gate. Kenton fought to get heard once his Balboa days were over. Originally Posted by JCat
Covering current hits was a way to buy your audience's attention and favor. Jazz fans aside, it ain't a typical audience's job to know what's hip. Garden variety audiences want to hear 1) what is current & 2) what they know...It's got a nice tune and I can tap my foot to it. it's never been any different. A successful jazz musician knows how to drive that road.
So because jazz musicians of the golden age survived by playing covers, we have lots of popular dance numbers in the real book, along side Fables of Phoebus. The beboppers were experimental and raised the musicianship to high art, never a prescription for popularity. Most of them said, "Fuck Chatenooga Choo Choo." They turned their backs on dance Music. And that's fine for what they were up to. The problem comes with us, the following generations, who worship Bird and Miles, and Coltrane and expect success doing that bag.
I say we find current tunes that offer something we can make MUSIC with, something we can actually add to. Go where the music is and there will be some success.
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Cool, lots of 50 year old songs Originally Posted by benrosow
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If you ever say that in Barry Harris’s presence you get a very dirty look. Actually according to him boppers frequently played for dancers and he first heard Bird in a Detroit dance hall for instance. Originally Posted by benrosow
Dizzy was a good enough amateur dancer to get free entry to the Savoy on a Saturday night. He was always keen to involve dance in his music.
The idea that the boppers didn’t want to play for dancers is bollocks really - the ‘no dancing’ signs were from a change in club licensing.
Or perhaps, more fairly put, a it's a take from a certain perspective. Norma Miller's perspective, or whatever...
That bop ended up being probably not good music for social dancing might be down to a number of reasons. Things may have played out differently.
Lots of convenient histories of jazz out there. Problem is they are all too convenient. Reality is messy, but also I think more interesting.Last edited by christianm77; 06-16-2019 at 08:54 AM.
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Re: this first point, I agree.... But it was a lot harder to say 'this is where jazz ends and this is where pop begins.' If we go back to the 20s and 30s there's a difference between 'sweet music' (i.e. dance band pop) and 'hot music' (i.e. black jazz) but there's overlap. Originally Posted by benrosow
Anyway, pick out a copy of Downbeat from the '30s and it's like reading a pop music magazine. Beefs, rivalries, gossip. Not a lot on the music itself.
Easy to imagine audiences of earlier generations were more cultured. They weren't.
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Sandals and a jazz festival t-shirt from 1993. That's how we do it here. Originally Posted by JCat
You got my point regarding the cover band standards, and I think you're right about "playing solo"; I would accept most chord playing instruments (even a Czech barbershop quarted)... but I'm a bit ambivalent about the bassoon... I'm afraid Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We say Goodbye" on solo Bassoon won't fly, but I would be thrilled hearing an attempt on "Four Brothers"
I'm listening to Karen Carpenter's version of the Beatles' "Ticket To Ride" right now, beautiful arrangement and performance raised above the cover clichés. The Beatles' catalogue is great, plenty of Beatles standards that will still be played in 50 years. And it can be played on a solo archtop, and "Yellow Submarine" even on solo Bassoon. It's not Jazz though (if that would be of any importance).
It's just a guess, but don't you think guitar music runs in the veins of most people frequenting this forum, that most of us started out playing guitar music? I have played rock, blues, soul and funk and I like it. And many, many listeners like it. That's my generation, my back yard. But I have also played and listened to Jazz since childhood because I like it. Classical music too.
Ever since the days of Bill Haley & the Comets, teenagers have been the target for pop production. The funny thing is that many people that grew up listening to AC/DC, still listen to the same music 40+ years later. For as long as I remember, artists have kept on servicing a loyal fan base, growing old with the fans, playing the same music year after year. There's just this little problem with live arena rock; one needs to fill an arena...
When the visual image of an act gets too much attention, does the actual music still speak to the audience? If the power of the music equals the length of the hair cut, what is the guitarist supposed to do when he develops the look of Joe Pass or Jim Hall? He could wear the usual wig or a bandana, but he doesn't have to play Jazz if he doesn't like it.
Yeah, I think there's a relationship between the process of guitar music and the way it gets covered as opposed to jazz.
I mean, in jazz we have a song written on the piano with melody and chords. Two hands, right? Pianists are massive dweebs and know all the names of the notes and so on, and like to come with arrangements etc.
If I learn the riff to Back in Black, that's how the guitar part goes. You can do that - learn loads of riffs, write your own, and so on - and never really deal with adapting pre-existing material. It's either the song as recorded or it's an original.
It's quite strange. When I was teaching some university guitar students selecting pieces for their final recitals, it was always stuff played by other guitarists. The idea of coming up with an instrumental version of a song they liked was FOREIGN. It was more like - let's play the exact thing Jimmy Herring or Mike Landau played. One student wanted to Beatles- Day in the Life. But it was the Jeff Beck version.
So I reckon this culture has a lot to do with it.
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I couldn't help but think of this scene: Originally Posted by Spook410
For me, I like the standard rep and it's what I want to be able to play well. I enjoy that. I'm not looking to go somewhere else."Learn the repertoire. It’s all in the songs. If you learn 200 songs, you will have no problem improvising."
Frank Vignola
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In regards to “new” songs; I spoke with a friend who has played for over 25 years in a bar band that plays mainly classic rock along with a healthy dose of current FM hits. He has always been very aware of the need to stay current and be aware of what is new, and mix that into the sets. I spoke with him a few days ago and he informed me that they no longer add new songs because the shelf life of pop tunes is now about 6 weeks, then (perhaps due to millennials persistent consumption) it’s old. They just don’t have time to learn and rehearse a song that will be “over “ two weeks after they get to it.
Ignorance is agony.
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My son compiled several CDs for he and his brother (ages 21 and 26) to listen to when they’re out in my van. Most of it would seem to fall into the categories of hip hop and new soul.
Once you get past the lyrics- the only words you can consistently make out from song to song would get you arrested or assaulted- I hear a melting pot - a bitch’s brew - of blues, jazz, soul and funk. Rather than the Beatles, it would seem that Sly and late Miles are the influences. The lyrics aren’t Bob Dylan, but if Bob was a millennial born and raised in Compton...
I like some tunes more than others. Several that I liked turned out to be by Anderson Paak. (Check out Malibu). I suspect a bunch on the most recent CD are off his latest album. One tune sounds like a take on the Temptations (if they were millennials, born and raised in Compton).
But no, nothing that the Real Bookers are likely to sink their teeth into. Music is disposable now.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Well said Mark and at an individual level, this sentiment certainly applies to a lot of talented musicians.
Thing is.. I feel like I'm missing something. Music is a live and evolving thing. Music styles come and go. Or, evolve out and evolve in over time. Where do we see the jazz song book going? It may not be called jazz anymore but it will have creativity, lots of room for improvisation, and appeal to the things in the human spirit that jazz touched upon when it was a lot more popular. And still does for those that listen to it. Of course there's the cynical argument about tech and music and going the way of conversational Latin.. but I really don't think that's it. Too many people still like to listen to local guitar slingers in a dive bar burning away on Allman Bros tunes. They draw a crowd if they're good. And that's just a hair away from jazz.Hell is full of musical amateurs - George Bernard Shaw
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Yes, mine as well, and I think most of us. I don't know of any published writer who has really addressed the place of the guitar in jazz: that it plays chords, does not quite fit with the rest of the band, that it has a strong Italian-American heritage. Originally Posted by JCat
I think of rock music as a form of musical theatre. I suspect that is why the British bands succeeded in America: we have a tradition of theatricality. Some have aged better than others. Originally Posted by JCat
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Yes, I was listening to Paak the other day. Also a great drummer BTW, obviously very much a scholar of music... And able to do his thing while drumming too: Originally Posted by Bach5G
Best not to sing along tho lol
It is very much 'music that sounds like music' though. I'm old enough to remember when Public Enemy landed lol. Probably the Beatles of my generation, though I hated it at the time.
I find the same thing with Tom Misch or any of these things, who I liked before I realised the things I liked about his music were things taken from his record collection (good guitar player though!)... Or Vulfpeck who I loved before I realised all their songs are half finished (you only need half a song for youtube). And it's all music that sounds like music, meaning you can tell it's quality music because it references stuff that came before. Obviously sampling culture is important here, but I also think Spotify and streaming has reinforced a sense of recreating a 'classic sound.'
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Here are a band I think are genuinely quite original. I'd recognise them anywhere:
Like a sort of asian and west african tinged Meters meets Morricone meets Dub... Or something? They sound vaguely 'classic', of the past, but not exactly like anything, and they are essentially instrumental (there are vocals, but not really lyrics) which is VERY unusual - the guitar is centre stage. I think this is a direction jazz could go in, too.
One things for sure, no shortage of great instrumentalists around today.
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Precisely, and by breaking free from guitar music the ears grow bigger as the hair get shorter (picture this..) Originally Posted by christianm77
But I think it's inevitable; every musician copies his influences in quest of an expression. Some stuff is repeated note by note as part of a learning process. Our role models did it too.
The challange, when it comes to the Great American Song Book, is that for a majority of the songs the guitar seldom had a leading role. This music is not guitar music, which means we have to approach it differently. Someone's vision may be "horn-like", another approach could be "piano-like" or we could copy some famous guitar player known for strong interpretations of GASB material; like Jim and Joe.
For me personally, it has meant switching role models from performing musicians to the actual composers. My heroes are the guys that wrote the music I love. I also like to do transcriptions from piano to guitar, working out my own finger setting arrangements, finding my own expression.
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I think we can also basically blame Miles for the destruction of the jazz standard. There's no need to focus our fire on pop musicians. Miles as much as anyone either prefigured or directly influenced a lot of later music (depending on who you listen to.) Originally Posted by JCat
And later on of course Miles carried on playing things he liked that he heard on the radio. It was the Young Lions that turned their back on that stuff...
The dissolution of classic song writing is of course influenced by many influences, but the move away from functional harmony is a big part of it. If we can follow an influence of Trane's music along with modal folk music onto Acid Rock in the late 60s on one hand, or the (hidden) influence Miles had on James Brown (at least Nicholas Peyton thinks so) - you have two of the big seminal influences on music that still echo today.
In his book on Kind of Blue, Ashley Kahn argues that this has equipped jazz to be able to do is diversify and become super eclectic and combine with musics all over the world, perhaps somewhat at the cost of it being able to maintain a common repertoire of up to date pop songs that people could improvise on on gigs. ECM of course expanded these horizons, Surman playing Dowland, uncategorisable music that could be termed 'world jazz' from the likes of Anouar Brahem and so on...
OTOH, the label 'jazz' has increasingly become home to musics that have little obviously to do with the jazz of the 1960s.... This is, I think, necessary, but not without issues. Where jazz festivals simply become a home to pop acts, it's pretty depressing. OTOH, a lot of pop music does owe much to jazz. Putting Chic on at a jazz festival does not feel that wrong to me, because Nile will tell you straight up he came out of Van Eps and the swing tradition.
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And I have to say the idea of genre is basically odd to me anyway.
I have no idea how to categorise the music of my band Balagan Cafe Band, but most people seem to hear it as a form of Gypsy Jazz. Which is interesting, because while we do play that music, only 3 or 4 of the tunes on the 12 track album actually fall into the genre, and they are themselves hardly purist takes on the music.
But I think Gypsy Jazz is kind of like truffle oil haha....
There are tunes that Shirley (our cellist) plays, like the Algerian tune Ticharaca Tchoub, or the unknown 'Balkan Tune' that have basically become her standards, and standards for people that play with her. Other tunes we often play on gigs such as Lamma Bada or Foq Al-Nachal are kind of Middle Eastern standards - the repertoire you will learn if you study the Oud. As a surprisingly large number of jazz guitarists seem to have some knowledge of the Oud, these tunes do kind of end up in the jazz repertoire. NYC seems to be home to a lot of Middle Eastern/Jazz crossover too.
Having spent 10 years playing in Jerusalem alongside musicians of all backgrounds, Shirley notes that the music that was understood to be jazz in Israel is here in London termed 'world music.' So that's quite interesting, and also annoying to her, because as soon as you go into 'world music' it becomes about purism, authenticity and so on, which I don't think Shirley is interested in at all.
Obviously Israeli musicians have made a big impact on the NYC scene...
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As much as I like Miles, and in particular "Kind of Blue", I think the only universal bread and butter standards from the iconic album are "All Blues" (3/4 beat, #248 on Jazzstandards.com) and "So What" (bass & drums, #435). (They may fall outside GASB, if that would be of any importance). Originally Posted by christianm77
I do like Modal Jazz, in particular work by Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock that also gave birth to a few standards outside GASB. But I honestly don't think we'll see any new modal standards of reasons covered in length in this fascinating thread. Modal is simply where parts of the audience get left behind. Fortunately a small group of skilled musicians will continue to serve a small discerning audience with great (modal) jazz, It could still be a good niche.
I've seen Nile and Chic live at a Jazz festival a couple of years back. Awesome performance and I'm grateful. Nile's got the harmonies, the melodies and the groove...What's there not to like? It was actually the main act...Jazz or not, a huge crowd enjoyed the show and they got a double page of cred in the paper the day after.Last edited by JCat; 06-17-2019 at 09:52 AM.
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I think Pat Metheny’s music for instance is very much a self aware reaction against this. His songs are songs, with changes. He did ok out of it. Originally Posted by JCat
But - modal itself is a nothing term. Middle Eastern music, Indian music, European medieval music and so on are all forms of modal music, but that tells you little about them.OTOH the modal jazz revolution allows jazz to collaborate with musicians of these traditions. See ECM catalogue for details...
Even within jazz on that other thread with Irez asking about the grammar of modal jazz brings in discussions of many different approaches to playing that music, from Cannonball to McCoy to Henderson ..... And Miles did some business out of it didn’t he? So you can’t really say it left people behind.
And now we have Kamasi etc. Most of the new London stuff that gets hyped is based on vamps and grooves to my ears. That stuff is popular with the young.
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True, true, Originally Posted by christianm77
Pat Metheny is one of the greatest players in our time. Untouchable in a way. It takes some confidence to call a Metheny song... "Better Days Ahead" from the album "Letter from Home" clearly has qualities I see in a standard. It became a radio hit over here in the 80s, unusual for the genre, but also a long time ago.
"Always and Forever" from the 1992 album "Secret Story" is a wonderful ballad, straight descending from GASB, influenced by Hoagy Carmichaels "Skylark". This is as close to a standard you'll get. It's not "guitaristic" and one of few Metheny songs that could also be played solo.
Vamps are indeed common elements in modal jazz, but maybe not a criteria? And what about Chic's "At last I'm Free", an 11 min vamp, not commonly referred to as a modal song (even though it is). Maybe it's about what we play during these vamps, if there is a strong melody, and how we make use of it.Last edited by JCat; 06-18-2019 at 01:27 AM.
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Hi Tal_175! I’m a bit late to this thread but will however give you my answer on the question Originally Posted by Tal_175
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Why no new standards? Well, I’ll say it’s rooted in the contemporary harmonies and influences. For example, how long ago was it you last time heard a maj7 chord in a pop or rock hit?
Even if much of the contemporary music is originated in both blues and jazz, the influences from the last one are more and more disappeared in the eternity. Of course many jazz guitarists today are incorporating triadic concepts from pop and rock, but not in the opposite way that pop and rock are incorporating advanced harmonic concepts from jazz. Therefore it’s possible that the contemporary pop and rock music is going to be drained in the future, because there are no influences from original art forms (blues, jazz, classical music etc.) in the end.Have I found it yet? I said that but I didn’t knew it. Did I knew that I had found it yet? No, it wasn’t what I was looking for. Nevermind. Ok.
-Pataphysical monologue based on Cartesian theory
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