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Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
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03-31-2020 05:59 PM
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So IIRC this thread ended up being boomers moaning about jazz musicians not playing boomer tunes (which are apparently new despite being 40+ years old), oblivious to the fact that many jazzers, boomers or otherwise, play boomer tunes all the frickin time, and then being all butt hurt when I revealed this fact.
i love this forum.
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There should be some new standards. There are some really beautiful tunes out there.
an unsollicited list of “new standards” that I love to play.
- African Skies (Brecker)
- Sing a Song of Song (Kenny Garrett)
- Unti or Kind Folk (Kenny Wheeler)
- Faraway (Joshua Redman)
- Country, Innocence, Prism (Jarrett)
- Mercy Street, Tempo de Amor (arr. By Herbie Hancock)
- To Wisdom the Prize (Larry Willis)
- Children of Harlem (Larry Willis)
- If it’s magic (arr by Peter Martin)
- There’s no sunshine when she’s gone (arr. by Billy Childs)
- Kid Charlemagne (arr. By Rachel Z)
- You’re Still the One (arr by John Scofield)
- Spring ain’t here (Pat Metheny)
new jazz standards on Spotify
there are tons of others, maybe...Last edited by Djang; 04-12-2020 at 11:45 AM.
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OK any candidate to be a standard type tune has to tick a few boxes
- strong melody (well known is a bonus) which tends to lead to
- adaptability of material (can be reharmed, arranged on the fly etc)
- good vehicle for improvisation
- well known by musicians, can be played on a gig with minimal or no rehearsal.
OK so most contemporary jazz compositions often fall short on more than one of these points.
Basically, one big issue I have with playing jazz compositions of the past few years is that they are often hard to adapt - so it feels like you are trying to recreate the original (tbh that can be a problem with standards and famous versions too, it’s - tendency here to do exactly that.)
but it can be done.
One way out of the last point is to slowly introduce a tune to a community of musicians over time.
This has happened with several of the Middle Eastern tunes that my friend and collaborator cellist Shirley Smart plays. These tunes formed part of the jazz repertoire in Jerusalem where she lived for several years but in London. They tick all those boxes despite being very much not GASB tunes.
(interestingly these tunes were regarded as ‘world music’ repertoire to be played ‘authentically’ when they hit London. In Israel they were jazz repertoire, to be improvised on and personalised. On fact some of the musicians who came up with the tunes may have thought of themselves as jazz musicians. That’s an interesting thing - local cultural differences.)Last edited by christianm77; 04-13-2020 at 10:08 AM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Most of the tunes we think of as jazz standards were pop tunes, often from theater or movies, which were later given a jazz treatment.
I recently looked at some song lists on the sites of wedding bands. I didn't know most of the tunes, but I don't listen to pop. Apparently, younger people know a lot of them. But jazz musicians have not, afaik, adapted many. That may be because song structure is more variable, pop music is much broader than before (so is jazz) --more styles, artists and songs.We aren't all listening to the same handful of playlist tunes on a few radio stations.
Hip/hop songs don't lend themselves to older jazz styles -- maybe somebody will break through that apparent barrier (I'd imagine it's been done already and I'm just unaware).
And, then, there are some jazz players who do pop tunes. I sat in with a group like that recently -- they did Just The Two Of Us, Feel Like Making Love, Oye Como Va and some other tunes that, while not all that new, weren't carved into stone by the Real Book either.
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Originally Posted by Tal_175
But if you take a song like "the World is Yours" by Pete Rock (which admittedly is derived from Ahmad Jamal's Patterns) or any number of J Dilla beats and the amount of times it's been used as the basis for improvisation amongst many modern Jazz players of the millenial generation, you could argue that it's essentially a standard for this group of people no?
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Keith Richards pointed out in an interview that when rock bands in the mid to late 1960s became the new fashion. They also basically were the players ,writers,producers ,etc.
And while they still continued to use outside resources like studio musicians, producers, and writers. This really was a huge paradigm shift to what had been the norm up u til they arrived.
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A jazz combo interpreting a rock song is in danger of appearing whimsical.
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If you fucking play it like you mean it it's really not an issue.
But then there's your problem with modern jazz all over...
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A Standard is a song that lasts the test of time. Even if they appear to be Corny like "You Are the Sunshine of My Heart" by Stevie Wonder.
I remember when this came out, and older Jazz musicians embrace this song on many gigs I attended or played on.
The same can be said of Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are", Leon Russell's "Masquerade ", Beatles " Yesterday", and some others as well.
These become standards in the Great American Songbook. Even if a Brit wrote them.
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Even Barry Harris plays Stevie Wonder
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Thanks for the correction, old age is creeping in. And yes I know it makes one very crabby!
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by jads57
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‘i can’t make you love me’
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A nice Coldplay jazz cover. Unlikely to become a standard however:
Last edited by Tal_175; 07-20-2020 at 08:29 AM.
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New standards? Not all songs are created equal, but, let’s say, there’s always a good song to be found.
I had a go at Elliott Murphy’s Waltz n°2. It’s a great song, I find myself humming it all day long and it withstands every treatment,
I am a guitar player since youth, but recently fell in love with piano. I just wished the feeling was mutual.
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IMO the main point of having standards is not the performers, it's the listeners. The more listeners know the melody of a tune, the more they can enjoy the solos. If you don't know the melody, then the solo is just bla-bidi-guk-duba. It's rare that a player can create spontaneous composition detached from the tune that is very memorable.
The problem with the current standards is that, most listeners, especially the younger generation (people under 70 lol) do not know the original tunes. So the solos get a bit too demanding for the average listener outside of being background music for candle light dinners.
I hadn't heard of most of the jazz standards before I stared listening to and playing jazz. The solos I enjoy the most are solos over tunes that I learned well enough to perform at least at a jam session.Last edited by Tal_175; 08-26-2020 at 03:07 PM.
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New “standards?” That time has passed. You can’t touch brilliance with mediocrity.
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Observation, perhaps made earlier: the 60s ushered in the guitar as main composing instrument, displacing the piano. make of it what you will.
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But if there were a catalog of music worthy of becoming a jazz standard it would come from the Motown or Philly catalog. Come on, both of these catalogs were performed by jazz musicians.
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Originally Posted by Tal_175
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Here is what I mean. You can totally hear the abstract, embellished form of the melody in the solo (pickup to the solo at 0:54). The melody totally runs through the solo as a theme. The feeling of mental connection you get with Joe Pass when you hear the abstract melody in the solo is very cool.
I don't know it's fair to expect a listener to hear the melody that well if they only heard the head in the introduction.
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Originally Posted by Tal_175
Cheap floating humbuckers
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